By Anna Tullgren | Individual, Community & Challenge Event Fundraiser
Thank you so much for your kind support of World Child Cancer’s project in the Philippines, where we are working to improve the diagnosis, access to treatment and quality of care for children with cancer on the island of Mindanao. This year has proven to be increasingly complex, due to the outbreak of COVID-19.
Mindanao Island, where we are delivering our work, has a population of 27 million and is the second largest island in the Philippines. Travel across the island is extremely time consuming and too expensive for most families; it can involve travelling for days by foot, land and sea, which poses major challenges when a child develops cancer and requires diagnosis and regular treatment. When we began our programme there five years ago there was just one paediatric oncologist on the island, Dr Mae Dolendo, who had recently returned to the country from training overseas, and just one main medical centre able to diagnose and treat childhood cancer, which meant very poor access for children with cancer in the more remote areas. At that time, just 180 (15%) of children who developed cancer received a diagnosis and began treatment, facilities were limited and only 45% of patients who presented at the hospital survived.
Thanks to your support, World Child Cancer can keep making improvements to Child Cancer awareness and treatment in the Philippines. 384 patients were successfully diagnosed and began treatment between January 2020 and December 2020. In addition, with social distancing measures World Child Cancer saw that local NGOs helped to support psychological activities for the patients and their families. World Child Cancer also oversaw the training of 24 health staff and 111 child cancer advocacy and awareness campaign activities.
It is thanks to your support that we can continue to set precedents for the improvement of cancer care on Mindanao and in the Philippines. World Child Cancer will be continuing the programme, spreading the awareness of childhood cancer and aiming to ensure every child receives the best possible care. Thank you for helping to give children with cancer the gift of growing up!
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