Dr Paul Wharin is a retired GP from the UK and has worked in Cameroon for several years. 1000 children are expected to develop cancer in Cameroon each year but many of them will never be able to access the treatment they require. Today, Dr Wharin has been speaking about the progress being made in Cameroon and how parent support programmes are enabling more families to afford the costs of travelling to hospital.
Sabongari lies in a deep hot valley, prone to high risks of malaria, to the north east of Banso Baptist Hospital. Professor Peter Hesseling, Glenn Mbah and myself each visited Dr Saye of Sagongari Catholic Hospital on several occasions but it is a long and difficult journey. The stark reality is that many families of children with cancer in Cameroon simply do not have the financial resources to reach the hospital to access the treatment their children desperately need.
World Child Cancer’s parent support programme now enables these children to travel to Banso Baptist Hospital (BBH) with financial support to cover transport costs. With this support, Dr Saye has been able to refer several children with Burkitt’s lymphoma to BPH who have now been able to make the journey to access the treatment they needed. Without your support to cover transport costs for some of the poorest families in the world, these children would have died without any form of treatment.
Just £100 could cover six months of transport costs to and from hospital for a child with cancer. Every 3 minutes a child with cancer dies in a developing country. You can Stop the Childhood Cancer Clock by giving the gift of growing up today.
