Improve Cancer Care for 270 Children in Myanmar

Megan Cruise is a trained counsellor with extensive experience in supporting children with cancer, and their families, in the UK and developing countries.

Over the past three months, Megan has been working in Myanmar where she has been delivering her training package to nurses, doctors and social workers whilst also providing counselling support to families.

We caught up with Megan and spoke to her about coping with childhood cancer in developing countries:

“Having spent the majority of the past year volunteering in developing countries, it has made me very aware of how lucky we are in the UK to have access to free healthcare. Knowing that the country in which you are born in determines the level of treatment and care available to you has really struck me and become even more apparent from my voluntary experiences. The availability of cancer drugs can in some cases be the difference between living and dying. However, I have also noticed how in life, the less we have the more resourceful we become.

The families I work with are going through one of the most painful, heart breaking, challenging and potentially devasting experiences of their lives. When their child is diagnosed with cancer, their lives are turned upside down and everything changes. Having someone outside their circle of family and friends, a professional who they talk to about how they are feeling, to cry with, to release anger with, to just sit with, can lighten the load slightly and make life a little bit more manageable.

There are many things that make coping with childhood cancer especially difficult for families. Spending extended periods of time away from home, the side effects of treatment, possible disfigurement, changes in image, missing large chunks of school, huge financial impacts are all attributing factors. The emotional needs of these families are enormous so providing them with an outlet to express their emotions is essential.”

As well as supporting families, Megan has been delivering workshops to nurses and medical professionals at hospital who also lack emotional support:

“When delivering training to nurses and clinical staff it has been clear to me that working with children with cancer has a big emotional impact on the staff. In every country the staff are keen to talk about the emotional impact and they are grateful for the opportunity to talk about how they feel and receive some support.

I have always known how healing talking can be but having had this experience of working in different counties where counselling is not so common, it has emphasised even more, to me how important talking is - giving families and staff the space and time to talk about how they are feeling and share their emotions is essential.

In some countries people are not aware that children can get cancer, and this can be very isolating for the families who do have a child with cancer. Having someone they can talk to about this can be provide a relief.”

Volunteering in different countries with varying cultures has not come without its challenges as Megan explains:

“I had not predicted that language would be such a challenge in Myanmar and this meant my work took a bit of time to get started. I now have an interpreter which is fantastic. I can now communicate fully with families and all the staff.

Since I arrived in Myanmar, a few local people have expressed concerns about whether parents would open up to me because my type of work is very new here and that people can be quite reserved in sharing their feelings but this has not been the case. Many parents have shared their thoughts almost straight away – they are keen to speak to someone about their situation and how they are feeling.”

As well as providing funds to cover essential treatment costs, World Child Cancer also develops twinning partnerships between healthcare professionals in the developed world, like Megan, and those in developing countries. Megan’s work will have a lasting impact on standards of treatment and care for children with cancer in Myanmar, and also help the incredible healthcare professionals with the day to day pressures of supporting these children.

Links:

• Counselling in Myanmar