TIRANA, Oct. 23- Tens of women and young girls came together on Oct. 22 at the center of the city of Shkodra in an awareness campaign about breast cancer. They urged other women to make early physical controls and examinations in order to diagnose and prevent the occurrence of such a disease.
They gave away educative leaflets about the disease and encouraged citizens to join the cause and get examinations to save their lives. Four new cases with breast cancer diagnosis were found this month from around 500 examinations done. As October is known as the breast cancer awareness month, all mammography examinations are free, and hospitals are working extended hours so all females can get a chance to get a check up.
‘’One in eight women usually gets affected from breast cancer, that is why we make these campaigns and promote having a mammography and other examinations so an early discovery of the disease can be made,’’ said doctor Lindita Haxhia.
Among the many volunteers in this fight against breast cancer awareness campaign, is future mom Jozefina Delija. Even though she is a couple of months due birth, she is trying to give any contribution to the campaign, as she believes it is an important issue. She said the ribbons were her work, wearing one as showing her participation to the cause.
‘’The biggest drama isn’t that many women die from breast cancer, but that many don’t get diagnosed. What it means is that it could have been prevented. This is the biggest drama of breast cancer,’’ said Delija.
Doctor Haxhia said that the interest of women and girls to conduct the mammography has increased over the years, which has a positive impact in treating and preventing the disease. October is the international breast cancer awareness month, however doctors and specialists try to have women aware of this disease throughout the entire year, which has gotten to an increased number of screenings. Thus, the severe cases of advanced cancer has drastically decreased. From January so far, there have been diagnosed 23 case of breast cancer cases in the entire region of Shkodra, which is a similar number with 2017. This means that the campaign should deepen its effects on discovering and prevention of the disease.
An issue remains the women that live in the far mountainous region, that still face a discrimination and judgement that might obstruct their lives.
‘’As educators and promoters of health that are working on the entire region of Shkodra, we face many obstacles because we go in the terrain, as we can see, and try to educate, we try to approach every lady, every woman, and usually on the first instance they hold back,’’ said Mirjana Marashi, worker at the Public Health Directory.
This can come from the mentality that the mammography consists on the examination of the breasts, and this might be seen as shameful. However, public health institutions, along with many other health organizations and associations from civic society have joined the cause, and are working hard in their campaign for fighting breast cancer and reaching a wider audience to prevent and treat the disease.
