‘Childhood cancers must be given the needed attention’ - Nursing Tutor advocates

Childhood cancers are on the ascendancy and must be given the needed attention for early diagnoses and treatment, Madam Beatrice Akpene Bekui, the Principal Nursing Tutor at the Ho Nurses Training College, said on Sunday.

She advised parents to closely observe their infants for strange reactions, swellings, protruding organs and other peculiar symptoms
and report promptly to health officials for early diagnosis, which was key to treatment.

Madam Bekui said this when the West FM Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to childhood cancers, took up the treatment of wilms tumor in a three-year-old boy, Kekeli Seme, in Ho.

Kekeli was diagnosed with the disease at age two after passing stools of blood.

Madam Bekui, also the Chairperson of the Foundation, said the child underwent surgery last year and that the Foundation had spent over GHC10,000 on his treatment, being the first beneficiary of the Healthcare Support Initiative.

She said the organisation existed to support the treatment of all kinds of childhood cancers in the Ho Municipality and the Volta Region as a whole.

Rosemond Seme, Kekeli’s mother, expressed gratitude to the Foundation for the support and said she had lost all hope until the intervention.

She told the Ghana News Agency that she had received another set of funds from the Foundation for the next stage of treatment, after diagnosis at the Ho Teaching Hospital confirmed the cancer, and that the infant had been referred to the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.

Mr Samuel Danku, the Executive Director of the Foundation, said the need for care was enormous and appealed to other entities of benevolence to support the Foundation to reach out to many more vulnerable children.

Wilms tumor is a kidney cancer that develops mostly in children.

The commonest symptoms include abdominal swelling or a mass in the kidney that is felt upon physical examination.