Editorial: Handle breast cancer with sensitivity

MOTIVATE, SUPPORT. Professional and gender-sensitive professionals are needed in the country’s health system, both public and private, to motivate and support women facing the possibility or reality of breast cancer. According to the World Health Organization, breast cancer is the first or second leading cause of female cancer deaths in 95 percent of the countries. Early detection, timely diagnosis and comprehensive management significantly save many women from breast cancer. / Pexels
MOTIVATE, SUPPORT. Professional and gender-sensitive professionals are needed in the country’s health system, both public and private, to motivate and support women facing the possibility or reality of breast cancer. According to the World Health Organization, breast cancer is the first or second leading cause of female cancer deaths in 95 percent of the countries. Early detection, timely diagnosis and comprehensive management significantly save many women from breast cancer. / Pexels

The World Health Organization (WHO) targets saving 2.5 million lives around the world that would otherwise be lost annually to breast cancer through the three pillars of early detection, timely diagnosis and comprehensive management.

Yet, this process will not even commence if the country’s health workers are insensitive to women’s concerns.

Eurice had menopause late in her 50s. Last year, when she resumed the annual breast exam that was suspended during the pandemic lockdowns, a cluster of micro-calcifications was found in her right breast.

Eurice recalls how the treatment she received from a private hospital in Cebu City almost discouraged her from seeking medical intervention. Her obstetrician-gynecologist referred her to a surgeon after seeing the mammogram results, without explaining and only commenting that the surgeon will discuss the matter.

Eurice felt she was reduced to a mere specimen when during breast ultrasound procedures, she was poked and gawked at by as many as three members of the team other than the doctor. A callous practice of interspersing casual chitchat with questions about her condition increased her anxiety and made Eurice wonder why they did not seem to have studied her case even though the hospital advertises that patients’ medical histories are stored in an online database, accessible to stakeholders.

In the same private hospital, two ultrasound procedures were aborted after she was told that her surgeon requested the wrong modality to locate the micro-calcifications. Scheduled for excision of the mass, she was assigned again for an ultrasound procedure and then passed on for a mammogram-guided localization, which could not be performed because there was no doctor available on the day of her schedule.

Eurice’s anxiety was intensified by doctors’ assistants, who approached her twice just before a procedure to inform her that she had to purchase from the doctors the needles to be used as the hospital did not have any stocks. While her breast procedures were covered by a health maintenance organization (HMO), the purchase of costly supplies meant out-of-pocket cash expenses for Eurice.

Seeking a second opinion, Eurice consulted friends and relatives. She chose a highly recommended breast surgeon affiliated with another private hospital in Cebu City. Her ultrasound, mammogram and biopsies were conducted by health professionals at a center dedicated to women’s diseases.

In the second hospital, Eurice found two things she missed in her trauma from the first hospital. First, she engaged with health professionals that explained clearly and handled professionally and diplomatically each case. It wasn’t just that it was an all-female team, from the security officer dispensing the priority numbers to the doctors performing the procedures and conducting a one-on-one post-procedure care regimen.

In the second hospital, the health workers understood how women, whether living with the certainty of cancer or worse, uncertainty while awaiting medical confirmation, run a gamut of emotions, such as shock from the unanticipated threat, fear of pain, anxiety over expenses, depression over the uncertain future and regrets. A marketplace, where hard-sell pushing of medical supplies replaces explanations enabling patient’s informed consent, is the most toxic environment to condemn persons already grappling with the big C.

Eurice also found, while queued at the second hospital, that being among other women dealing with the same ailments presents opportunities to support and be supported. The women’s shared information and insights, from the mundane (how does a woman undergoing chemotherapy cope with children and chores?) to the practical (which institutions grant assistance with medical expenses?), are significant for buoying the resolve to follow through in the long and trying process involved in the detection and management of cancer.

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