The incidence of cancer is on the rise in Africa.
Uganda's only radiotherapy machine used for treating cancer is broken beyond repair, the country's main cancer unit says. This leaves thousands unable to get potentially life-saving treatment. The cancer unit is currently talking to the ministry of health to find a way to buy a new machine, but it is not clear when that will happen.
The cancer unit at Mulago Hospital in the capital, Kampala, is now looking for $1.8m (£1.3m) to buy a new machine. It gets 44,000 new referrals a year from Uganda, as well as from neighbouring countries including Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan.
Around 75% of these may require radiotherapy, the unit's spokesperson Christine Namulindwa told the BBC.
Patients are still able to get other treatments, such as chemotherapy and surgery, but if they need radiotherapy, and they can afford it, they will have to travel to neighbouring Kenya.
2 comments:
I saw this on the SPGB Forum,
real Politics
http://www.rte.ie/news/2016/0419/782834-uganda-cancer-treatment/
Quote:
Thousands of cancer patients in Uganda will be left untreated for months after the nation's only radiotherapy machine broke down.
It has triggered public criticism about underfunding in the health system weeks after the president's re-election.
The device was bought in 1995 and sited at the main Mulago Referral hospital.
Things like this emphasise the need to organise worldwide, both because workers in Uganda are just as in need as anywhere else, but also a reminder that, as with greece, an economic seige kills (they nearly ran out of insulin and thyroxin).
I should have put a link into the Forum.
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/real-politics#new
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