NGO on a journey of hope towards cancer elimination
Journey of Hope Botswana has started their annual bike ride that will see them visit 10 towns in seven days conducting breast cancer awareness and screening.
Journey of Hope Botswana (JOHB) is an NGO that promotes early detection and treatment of Breast Cancer and the bike ride is done to fulfill their pledge to take breast cancer awareness throughout Botswana. This annual trip was brought to an abrupt halt by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The GO’s spokesperson Onica Lekuntwane explained that they have set their team of experienced nurses and doctors an ambitious target of testing over 2500 people, over 5000 breasts in various villages and towns.
Lekuntwane encouraged both men and women to test for breast cancer, as it affects both.
“The nurses will palpate people’s breasts and if they find anything they are not happy about, they will refer it to doctors who will conduct further tests,” Lenkutwane said, adding that they will further offer lessons on breast cancer.
A family physician from Bokamoso Private Hospital, Dr. Bridget Malone, urges people to get screened as early detection of cancer can be helpful in their recovery. Malone notes that cancer can be treated as long as it is detected in its first stages.
Malone's journey with the NGO started in 2014, after her recovery from cancer of the tongue back in 2013.
Malone’s struggle with cancer led her to discover that breast cancer care outside of Gaborone was very scarce and people found it difficult to get treatment or access it.
Malone explains that throughout the years, Journey of Hope Botswana has been able to increase its services and has grown from just giving breast cancer awareness talks and physical screening, to being able to take samples from the breast lumps to labs in Bokamoso Private Hospital.
They now have an ultrasound machine and a mobile mammogram machine.
The combination of physically testing breasts using an ultrasound machine, and using a mammogram machine has given Dr. Malone confidence that they will be able to defeat breast cancer.