Friday, September 30, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
New York Times
On September 26, 2011 The New York Times published an article entitled “Fighting a Cancer with Vinegar and Ingenuity. The article discusses how doctors in Thailand use the same method as PINCC to save women from dying of cervical cancer and praises them for their resourcefulness and cost effective methods. To read the full article Please go to http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/health/27cancer.html?_r=1
Dr. Kay Taylor sent the following letter to the editor:
"Donald McNeil’s article (Sept. 27: A little vinegar and ingenuity) on cervical cancer prevention services shed an important light on a hardly-covered issue. The cervical cancer epidemic in the southern hemisphere has been given little support or attention, despite the death rate in Africa and Latin America being almost as high as maternal mortality. Yet cervical cancer – unlike other cancers -- is completely preventable.
PINCC (Prevention International: No Cervical Cancer) is an organization that brings American volunteer doctors to train local medical personnel in Africa, India and Latin America. We then donate the needed equipment to create self-sufficient centers for diagnosis and treatment. The unsung heroes of this movement are the many doctors, mid-levels, and lay people who pay their own way and donate their time to help the poor and high-risk women ignored by many countries’ health systems. However, funding for this work is difficult to obtain, unlike maternal/ child health or HIV/AIDS.
I applaud the George W. Bush Presidential Center for its recently announced “Pink Ribbon/ Red Ribbon” program to help defeat cervical cancer in Africa and Asia. They will work with PEPFAR programs, so that cervical screening will finally be included in HIV/AIDS care. At last, public health programs are recognizing this neglected public health epidemic. We can save so many women from a terrible death, with such simple tools and the great hearts of our volunteers! "
PINCC encourages our supporters to send similar letters of their experience with PINCC to New York Times' editor at letters@nytimes.com
Monday, September 19, 2011
An African Urban Pilgrimage
Our fall East Africa Campaign is over, and all our great volunteers are off on safaris or heading home. It's been so heartwarming and thrilling to watch our 3 continuing sites grow and become independent! The biggest thrill, though, was going out to a small rural hospital on the lower slopes of Mt. Elgon, in far western Kenya, to start a training of health workers from 5 very rural sites. This group was recruited by three of our trainees in Kitale and Kapenguria, They have gone out to these sites, doing one-day screenings and bringing women with abnormal results in for treatment. The doctors, nurses, and clinical officers were very excited about the techniques, and asked to be trained. We had 12 new people begin training, and 3 observers from other programs, as well as 4 of our graduates there to help start the new ones out. They came from many miles away, traveling since dawn in small buses called matatus. All had read the material sent, and were most enthusiastic students. The word had spread among the communities as well, and every day the waiting room filled to overflowing in the morning. We could only see about half the women; but the others were booked to come back to our centers during the next weeks. We left screening kits for the 5 hospitals and dispensaries to continue screening women during the 6 months until our return, when we will see and treat any positive cases. The wonderful outreach team is organizing a non-profit to continue spreading this work over the entire area, and we are assisting them to find funding and equipment, and donating much of it ourselves. We'll be showing a map of how much of the country is now getting care at our Walkathon on Sept. 24, and will then have it on the website. Watch for more great pictures as well! Today, Monday Sept. 12, Pat Sax and I (Kay Taylor) took a walking pilgrimage towards fulfilling a dream held since 2006, when we first came to Kenya. Ever since our first visit to the Kibera slums, second largest slum in the world, we have wanted to establish a cervical cancer screening and treatment site for these women who struggle daily for the bare essentials of life. One million people live in 700 acres here, on unimproved dirt in squalid mud rooms with tin roofs. Each little cubicle holds a family of 2, 3, 4 or more, with an open window and door covered by a piece of cloth. There is no water, electricity, or sewers; the rutted paths are strewn with garbage and plastic bags used as toilets. Small fires burn between structures and along the fronts, for heat, cooking and trash destruction. In a misting rain, we carefully picked our way through the mud and rocks for about half a mile from the dirt road which ended at defunct railroad tracks, along with hundreds of other people carrying food, water, bags, pushing wheelbarrows, or just kids going to and from school in uniform. We kept our eyes mostly on the path to keep from slipping into the streaming gutters of oily filth. At last, we reached our goal: Shining Hope School and Clinic, on the far side of the slum from the road. This will be our third clinic in Kibera to attempt a permanent program. The previous ones failed to stay in business. The enthusiastic group of Kenyans and Americans who built this 2-story clinic of cement, rock and wood greeted us happily. We were shown around the facility, meeting teachers, nurses, lab workers, a clinical officer and Dr. Henry, who tend to men, women and children from this desperate camp every day. They proudly tell us of their HIV screening program and the soon-to-be-established ARV treatment program; the 400 women they have in prenatal and family planning; and the immunization program for the babies and children. It only costs 150 shillings (about $1.60) for a person to receive all health care services for a week, including lab tests, procedures and medicines. We discussed our cervical cancer screening and treatment training program with Dr. Henry and two administrators from the USA, explaining our goal of helping them to have a cervical screening and treatment program independently functioning and fully equipped within 2 years. We all knew there would be problems to overcome, but felt they could be worked through, and left with the intent to start training in February of 2012. We were waved off by some of the 64 primary schoolgirls who attend school here. As we walked back across the crowded, slippery paths, I thought about bringing our team of American doctors, nurses and other volunteers along this walk twice a day, and moving in our equipment suitcases on the carts and wheelbarrows navigating the trails around us. Would they tolerate it? It reminded me of the famous pilgrimage in Spain through the Pyrenees to the sea in Portugal: self-denial and deprivation of our comfortable, clean way of life for the week of work, if not the months that journey requires. We will need to prepare our team carefully. But when I see a mother welcome her neatly uniformed children back from school with a smile, I'm awed by the amount of planning, work and love that this daily routine requires. I think our group will thrive on the challenge, and be invigorated by the hope and healing our training will bring. These are mothers and grandmothers motivated not only to survive, but to help their children to rise to better things. Surely we can spend a few uncomfortable days to give them the chance to avoid this silent killer, and live to see the children graduate and thrive. The gratitude we receive is certainly its own reward!
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
Update from Africa
As usual, Africa is somewhat chaotic, and we struggle with spotty electricity, overworked staff, inability to hook up the cryotank, scant resources; but we have made major strides despite all this in our Gombe, Uganda clinic. The health workers are very excited and enthusiastic, both clinical and community workers. The Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Lule Haruna, has been given responsibility as District Health Officer as well, and 2 of his doctors were sent for further training, so they were really tight on doctors. But he is so committed, he found time to study the techniques in the evenings, and came for training in LEEP; he scored only one part wrong answer on our post-test, and is excellent at teaching. The community health team has started insisting the HIV+ women come for screening, and we did 5 LEEPs, saving these lives. There were 4 other LEEPs as well. I think Gombe will be a very successful program!
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
PINCC India in Mysore
July 14 2011
John Adams
We have seen a huge number of women here in Mysore – over 200 in the first three days – with pretty much the same percentages of positives and pap smears as usual in India.
The big news here is that last evening (Tuesday, July 12) we were taken to meet the Swamiji (god-man) of the JSS system. He is head of many health care and educational institutions all over the greater Mysore area, and is reputed to have a huge amount of power and ability to get things done. Our host hospital for this visit is JSS Hospital, by far the largest hospital in Mysore. The connection was made by Mr. V. Bhat, who is a leader in the local Rotary and a devotee of the Swamiji.
Our visit with the Swamiji seemed to be very successful, and he told us we should meet with the Karnataka State Minister of Medical Education. He also acknowledged how important our work is. We then went into a small dining room inside the ashram and were given dinner and tea. As we ate, Mr. Bhat called the Minister and set a meeting for Wednesday at 5:00.
During the night, Dr. Rashmi became quite ill and had to be taken to a nearby hospital emergency room. There are not easy ways to get transport at 2:00 am in India, so the young man on the hotel desk woke up another guest with a car and got the owner to take us. The young man also came along because he knew where to find the hospital. With Rhoda and Rashmi and her mother Mytree that made a really full car!
This hospital had an excellently stocked and fully staffed emergency room and no waiting patients, so Rashmi got seen immediately. Unfortunately, they could not find the cause of her pain and nausea, but gave her an injection to ease the cramps. In the morning, Rashmi and Mytree left us and returned to their family in Bangalore. Later in the day we found she was feeling better, but still unsure of the cause.
So Rhoda was on her own with the volunteer docs, and as luck would have it, we had 81 women to see, and carried out 2 LEEP, many cryos and biopsys, and worked over an extra hour to get everyone seen. It's hard to turn women away when they've been bussed in from a remote village for the screening. Dr. Shobha Krishnan, a Columbia Univ. professor with her own HPV NGO in Chennai and Gujurat, is visiting to explore collabortions, and she pitched in with background stuff in the medical area. I was inundated with registrations, clinical reports, and a spreadsheet that crashes every few minutes – but we got through it all!
Unfortunately the minister could not meet with us, so we are carrying on with whatever connections we can make and focusing on building a network of solid relationships for the future. Given all this, we were glad the Minister of Health Education was unable to see us!
Friday, July 8, 2011
Dr. Vijaya introducing Rhoda at the press conference
July 8 2011
Dr. Vijaya is our lead trainee in Mysore
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