01 Oct 2020

The First Lady, Ms Neo Masisi, celebrated Independence Day with Botswana-Baylor Children Clinical Centre.

Talking to patients, caregivers and children in attendance, Ms Masisi said there was need to support children and families who were going through cancer. 

She said life should be celebrated and also be thankful for the lives of child cancer patients who survived the disease as well as those who succumbed to the disease.

First Lady Masisi commemorated the day with a donation to 65 children and pledged to celebrate the day every year with Global HOPE Botswana. 

As a member of the Global HOPE International Council, she urged all to mark the month of September not only as independence month, but also a child cancer awareness month.

Global HOPE International is an initiative that focuses on creating an innovative pediatric hematology oncology treatment network in Sub-Sahara Africa. 

Ms Masisi said the initiative would usher in long term capacity to treat and improve the prognosis of thousands of children with cancer and blood disorders. 

The support offered, she indicated, would range from training of health care professionals to setting up infrastructure.

Currently, Ms Masisi said efforts were directed at constructing a world-class facility in Botswana, adding that a site had been identified adjacent to Sir Ketumile Masire Teaching Hospital. 

She said once the facility was completed, it would provide care to child cancer patients in the region and contribute to improved survival rates.

She expressed concern at the comparative childhood cancer statistics in the Sub-Sahara Africa and the United States; indicating that 90 per cent of the 100 000 children in Sub-Sahara Africa who developed cancer died. 

She therefore said resource mobilisation was paramount in order to achieve a dream of constructing a facility that would provide world class care for children in the region.

The First Lady urged parents, family members and caregivers to continue keeping an eye on the children. 

She encouraged everyone to watch for any unusual physical signs ranging from marks, spots on the body to sudden exhaustion and lack of energy as part of awareness and everyday lives and urged them to seek medical assistance attention if they observed such signs.

Pediatric hematologist and oncologist director, Botswana Global HOPE Dr Jeremy Slone  assured parents and guardians that early diagnoses of cancer  would ensure higher chances of successful treatment. 

Therefore, he said parents and family members should be observant of signs in their children, encouraging them to take the children for medical attention if they thought they were unwell. 

Dr Slone  said parents should take note of signs and symptoms they notice in a child so that they could share with doctors.  

He said they were aware that cancer might not be the first thing they think of but encouraged them to be on the lookout for the signs. Ends