Solevu Village - Breast Screening and Cervical Cancer Clinic

After the initial discussion with my father I did some research online and found a contact at the Fiji Cancer Society (FCS). I phoned and spoke to Janice Ali, the secretary of the FCS and told her about our project and what we wanted to do. Janice was happy to help us and offered to send out educational leaflets to the women and provide medically trained personnel to do the screening. Janice also put me in touch with Marilyn Curtis, President of FCS and we started talking about how to proceed. After some discussion, we discovered that the FCS didn’t have a relocatable/portable mammography machine! I tried to find one in Australia that we could buy and donate to them but it has proven to be extremely hard to find one. I contacted BreastScreen Australia and spoke to Helen Sutherland based in the ACT. As it happens, Helen has lived and worked in Fiji on and off for the past 36 years and is a mine of valuable insight and information. No-one could be better placed to assist us in all aspects of this breast screening project.

After rethinking our approach I contacted Marilyn again and suggested that we do clinical examinations of all the women and anyone found to have an abnormality be sent to the mainland for a mammogram and further tests. Marilyn readily agreed and we are now in the midst of making all the necessary arrangements.

The Sports Fund Raising Day at Solevu village that we hosted on 10 October 2008 (refer to previous article) coincided with the official opening of the school as well as coinciding with the screening clinic which started the day before, on 9 October. We sent out leaflets to every village and resort attending the Sports Day informing all the women of what we will be doing. If they wanted to participate they had to register with us in advance so we have approximate numbers for organisational purposes i.e. medical personnel, size of space for the clinic etc. The GFF also offered every participant 4 free bras and each woman will be correctly measured for size after having their exam. It was perfect timing for these events for two reasons: 1) October is Cancer Awareness month in Fiji and 2) the FCS was having a bra art competition which the women can participate in as well.

Whilst doing research on breast cancer in Fiji I learnt that the women who are “lucky” even to be diagnosed with cancer are often sent home to die without treatment or medication or alternatively go through a traumatic radical mastectomy for which there aren’t enough post operative prostheses. A lot of it boils down to cost – no-one can afford, treatment, meds or prostheses and there is little to no funding from the government. The Fiji Cancer Society is doing the best possible job they can on very little funding and assistance. It’s often up to other organisations, such and the Fiji Women’s Lawyer Association and Avon, to raise funds and help bring awareness to women throughout the country especially given that cervical cancer is the highest cause of death amongst Fiji women.

It is my sincere hope to bring about a positive change to this situation, not only for breast cancer but all types of cancer, especially the most prevalent and therefore deadliest. Hopefully these actions will generate interest from more organisations to champion other causes such as heart disease and diabetes too.

Suze Glenn
Glenn Family Foundation
GFF Fiji