Professor Molyneux has worked in Malawi with her husband, a tropical medicine specialist, for over 20 years. In 1995 she became head of the paediatric department at the College of Medicine/ Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre successfully adapting her experience from Liverpool’s Alder Hey Children’s Hospital to a resource poor setting. Guided by her belief in doing simple things and doing them well, she set up an accident and emergency unit halving inpatient child mortality through simple emergency triage procedures and improved staff training. Since then she has been focusing on the problem of childhood cancer in Malawi.

Many of the most common childhood cancers in sub-Saharan Africa such as Burkitts lymphoma and Wilms tumour (kidney cancer) can be treated simply and cheaply with the appropriate drugs. However, she found that many cancers were diagnosed very late because primary healthcare workers and parents have little knowledge of the early signs of the disease. In addition, many children who were diagnosed failed to complete the full course of treatment due to the practical and financial pressures on their parents of long hospital stays.

“Children with cancer in developing countries have not received much attention or support. Other challenges such as HIV/AIDS or tuberculosis have overwhelmed health services. However, many children with cancer can be cured. It costs only £40 to provide the drugs to save a child with Burkitts lymphoma in Malawi. A little money really does go a long way.”

Through Professor Molyneux’s international network she has established an advisory group including Professor Peter Hesseling from the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, Dr Rob Skinner and Dr Simon Bailey from the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle in the UK and Dr Trijn Israels at Emma Children’s Hospital, Amsterdam, in The Netherlands. Locally appropriate treatment protocols have been developed for Burkitts lymphoma and Wilms tumour with very promising results.   Both protocols have focused on reducing the overall length and cost of treatment resulting in a shorter stay in hospital. Twinning relationships have been developed between the Blantyre oncology unit and Emma Children’s Hospital and the unit at the Royal Infirmary Newcastle (Malawi Children with Cancer) and these partnerships along with funding for staff, drugs, an awareness advertising campaign and better support for families to reduce abandonment of treatment are funded by World Child Cancer.

Liz and her husband were awarded OBE’s in 2007 for their services to medicine.  She has now semi-retired but remains living in Malawi and takes an active role in clinical care on the wards and in overseeing the project for World Child Cancer.

Professor Elizabeth Molyneux