By Damiete Braide
Children Living With Cancer Foundation (CLWCF), a non-governmental organisation, has appealed to well spirited Nigerians and corporate organisations to support its course in creating a child cancer centre where there will be accurate data for children with cancer.
Its founder, Dr Nneka Nwobbi, made this known during its annual “2023 Walkathon” to end Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. It kicked off from the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idiaraba to Ojuelegba roundabout and back to LUTH premises.
She said: “This is the last of our activities for the year. During the month, we had a lecture, art exhibition by children who have cancer and children who wants to encourage these children who have cancer.
The walk is the barest minimum that anybody can do and when people are able to walk, it helps to create good health in them.
“A child who is ill will play and walk until the illness relieves him/her a little but when that child stays at one place and keeps quiet, then people know that that illness is severe. So, walking is form of exercise and as it prolongs one of life”s activities.
“Some of the challenges that children living with cancer encounter is lack of awareness. Also, bringing children with cancer on time to the hospital is problematic for some parents.
“When the child is brought to the hospital on time, the child does screening and people will ask, can this be that this child has cancer.
Treatment for cancer is also expensive as it is not a one-off treatment but a continuous thing. Even if the child has been treated for cancer, that child still needs to be maintained for life.
“There are organisations that now support children with cancer unlike before when we started in 2003. We were the first to start the awareness of children living with cancer and since then, the awareness has increased.”
She urged the government to put a discount in the treatment of children and people living with cancer in Nigeria because the investigation, treatment, physiotherapy, hospital bills, medications among others costs a lot of money: “Parents of these children should be supported because after staying with the child for a long time, they loose their jobs.”