The Sunday News
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
AT least 100 000 women have been screened for cervical cancer at the United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH) since 2010, a move that points out that women are warming up to the service.
This was revealed during a tour of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) supported projects last week by the visiting regional director, Dr Julitta Onabanjo at UBH. UBH gynaecologist Dr Harrison Rambanapasi told the delegation that the centre has tested 100 000 women in the last decade.
“About 100 000 patients have been screened at UBH since 2010 and we are happy that women keep coming to seek services,” he said.
Director Reproductive Health in the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Dr Bernard Madzima added that the statistics recorded at UBH were impressive.
“Our screening services are also available at district level but we are also targeting outreach programmes. We are looking at different ways of treating women and for centres that cannot treat, we are working at improving the referral pathway,” said Dr Madzima.
The UNFPA delegation was in the country for a Sustainable Development Goals meeting that was held in Victoria Falls and took time to visit projects that are supported by UNFPA.
Dr Madzima said UNFPA and UBH were keen on integrating the services offered in the reproductive health section. He said the support has resulted in renovations of buildings at UBH so that they could integrate the services of Gender-Based Violence (GVB) management, Sexual Reproductive Health and HIV, among others.
Dr Rambanapasi said the support from UNFPA has gone a long way in ensuring that women have access to cancer screening.
“As you might know prior to 2010 the cervical cancer screening programme at public health scale had actually collapsed so there was virtually nothing being done in terms of cervical cancer.
“In 2010 the Government decided to tackle cancer head on, they sent gynaecologists and a midwife for Visual Inspection with Acetic Acid and Cervicography (VIAC) training. That support was funded by UNFPA. On their return they set up a VIAC screening clinic at UBH, we realised that for UBH to do everything was impossible looking at the population so this knowledge needed to be cascaded down to others nationally.”
Dr Rambanapasi said UNFPA support was also catering for those that test positive to cancer and would require treatment such as cryotherapy, LEEP and thermal ablation.
“We have gone a step further and done outreaches at tertiary institutions in the city to educate students on the importance of being screened. We have also visited private companies with the same message. Patients that are most at risk are the HIV population and those that are sexually active especially those with multiple sexual partners,” he said.
In a bid to improve services availed to women at the maternity wing of UBH, an old building has also been renovated to house more services.
“We renovated an old building at the maternity wing in view of the challenges of space that we were facing and we were assisted by UNFPA. This new structure will be used for various other reproductive issues and will also house a maternity theatre, maternity Intensive Care Unit and a youth friendly corner where we have reproductive health services for the young people,” said Dr Rambanapasi.
