Preventive Health Clinic Opened For Cancer Awareness Month At KNUST 2018
Dr. Arti Singh, physician in-charge of the Preventive Health Clinic, at the University Hospital, has encouraged women in the University community to visit the Preventive Health Clinic (PHC) of the University Hospital to access quality care and cancer education particularly, on breast cancer this month.
Dr. Singh was speaking to Irene Sakyiwaa-Siaw of the University Relations Office (URO) on Breast Cancer Awareness Month (October) as declared by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
According to Dr. Singh, the Clinic is opened this month to women in the University community and the general public to walk-in for a nurse or doctor for a clinical breast examination. She added that patients who visit the Clinic would also be given the option for a pap smear test for cervical cancer.
All cases with abnormalities Dr. Singh stated, would be referred to the appropriate section for any further evaluation and assessment. She noted that the focus is on breast cancer awareness because the month has been designated as such by WHO.
She encouraged many women to visit the Clinic as most cases of breast cancer are detected very late thereby reducing one’s chances of survival. “One of the ways to do this in our busy settings is to come for a clinical breast examination which also gives us the opportunity to teach women how to do a self-breast examination for cases to be detected early” she said.
Dr. Singh revealed that aside the cancers, the preventive health clinic also offers a walk-in service for screening hypertension, diabetes, obesity/overweight, vaccination for Hepatitis B and STI education among other tests.
With the disease pattern changing from infectious to more of communicable diseases, she added that, most of the disease conditions coming up now are preventable. These, she said included cancers, hypertension, diabetes, etc.
Last year, the Clinic embarked on an awareness and screening exercise at the KNUST Great Hall, which saw over a hundred women from the University community being screened for breast cancer.
The PHC has been in existence for the last two years and the idea behind its establishment is to have a unit where people could walk-in for services such as health education of many preventable conditions and it offers a patient-friendly and comfortable environment where patients do not have to go through the normal out patient’s department (OPD) before they are attended to.