Save women from breast cancer in South Africa

Wow, providing breast cancer treatment for female farm workers has been a real learning curve for our nursing staff here at Hlokomela Clinic in Hoedspruit, South Africa! But it’s been a journey that would not even be possible without you, our donors.

After the first round of ultrasound training for our Professional Nurses and Assistant Nurses in July, Dr Susan Harvey and two biomedical engineering students from Johns Hopkins University returned in August for a week of intensive theoretical and practical training. Sister Julies Moriri says: “The training was excellent but it felt like only one day because it was so intense. I look forward to the next training session”.

In the meantime we are expecting delivery of the full sized ultrasound machine that we were able to buy with your donations. Dr Susan Lucas, Head of Clinical Unit: Breast Imaging at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa will be at Hlokomela Clinic when the machine arrives and will be on staff twice a month to support our nurses with ongoing training.

Thank you once again for contributing to make such a huge difference in our vulnerable farm workers’ lives! As it is a multi-purpose ultrasound machine that will be arriving at Hlokomela shortly, we hope that this project will one day also be used in obstetrics where it can be a point of care for improving pre-natal care and HIV treatment so that more babies are born HIV negative.