NMA Laments State Of Cancer Equipment At UNTH

THE Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Enugu branch has decried the deteriorating condition of the radiotherapy centre at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH).

Its Chairman, Dr. George Ugwu who was speaking during the 2016 World Cancer Day yesterday in Enugu said that the centre had been out of service for over one year, stressing that it was the only radiotherapy centre in the zone.

He said that government needed to address the issue of healthcare funding through enhanced provision of facilities and training programmes. “Only the topmost hospitals in this country have radio therapy machines and sometimes these machines are not even functional.

“These basic facilities used to care for cancer patients need to be installed in all level of hospitals because cancer is a very wide spectrum of illness that can affect anybody. There are dearth of oncologists, radiotherapists, gynecological oncologists, general surgeons with special interest in cancer and specialists in pain relief. These specialists are all needed to tackle the increasing burden of cancer,” he said.

Ugwu regretted that many cancer patients were not able to cope with the financial demands for treatment, whether through surgery, chemotherapy or radiography.

Also speaking, Dr. Vitalis Okwor, a Consultant Clinical Radiation Oncologist at the UNTH, said that the cancer support group in the institution had been boosted for cancer awareness programmes, adding that the activities of the UNTH Cancer Group were well backed by the Union of International Cancer Control and would run for one year.