Speaker urges for more grassroots cancer screening

The Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, has reiterated her call to the Uganda Rotary Cancer Program to further spread their message to get to the lowest person so as to improve the country’s statistics about cancer.

Officiating at the Rotary Virtual Cancer Run 2020, Kadaga, commended the team for their dedication and drive towards eradicating cancer in the country and thanked participants and sponsors of the run.

Unlike past years where runners converged at the Independence Grounds in Kololo for the event, this year saw participants running from different locations and sharing pictures and videos over social media. This was meant to avoid gathering, one way to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus.

“Today we are here to celebrate the resilience of the Rotary family in fighting this disease called cancer. In March this year no one would have predicted that we cannot sit together or plan together because of the pandemic,” she said in Muyenga on 30 August 2020.

“Nonetheless you did not allow this situation to stop the annual run which is now in Uganda and the whole world. I will continue to urge you to go down to the very last Ugandan in the deepest of villages so that we can improve on the statistics,” she said.

She said that she was looking forward to a time when cancer screening becomes routine which would lead to its early detection and treatment.

The Chairperson of the Uganda Rotary Cancer Program and District Past Governor, Steven Mwanje, said that they have embarked on creating awareness and offering free services in the villages.

“We want to create awareness in the population, offer free screening and ultimately free treatment; building infrastructure and finally building human resource capacity to deal and treat with the cancer patients,” he said adding that “With the support of Nsambya Hospital, we go around the country offering free screening services.”

The Chairperson Rotary Cancer Run, 2020, Dennis Jjuuko thanked all the sponsors of the Rotary Cancer Run for their donations which have helped them raise substantial resources that have built the Rotary Caner Centre located in Nsambya Hospital in Kampala.

“I thank all those who ran and I continue to encourage you to exercise regularly, eat healthy foods and endeavor to test for cancer regularly as it is still a dangerous disease,” Jjuuko said.

The District Governor Rosetti Nayenga, said that Rotary committed to serve humanity, and believes in disease prevention and treatment hence their drive to spread the message of wellness, improving and expanding services towards health care.

At the event, the Rotary family paid tribute to the fallen film star of the Black Panther, Chadwick Boseman, who died of Colon Cancer.