Pink Lily will celebrate World Cancer Day on Thursday February 4th By launching a Breast Screening Programme (BSP) after raising a total of EC$25,000 that will enable 100 women to have mammograms. Each mammogram will cost Pink Lily EC$200. The launch of the program is part of a series of activities planned in the month of February when the charity celebrates its second birthday. “We have chose to launch the program on World Cancer Day whose theme is Cancer Can Be Prevented Too because we agree and support the theme,” the founder and executive director Lea Parris-Cambridge has said. The launch of the mammogram program will be at the Memorial Square in Charlestown. Members of the public, she said, can pick up free literature and talk to Pink Lily volunteers at a tent to be mounted at the Square. According to experts, each year, over 12 million people receive a cancer diagnosis and 7.6 million die of the disease. “The good news is that approximately 40 per cent of cancers are potentially preventable,” said Lea Parris-Cambridge. She said the charity which she launched two years ago has created awareness of all cancers to help the public know the value of early screening. She constantly repeats in her public lectures that “Cancer is not a death sentence.” She said the mammograms will be done at a clinic in St. Kitts that has a mammogram machine, adding that women who go through the Pink Lily program will be given pre- and post-counseling. “Should they be diagnosed with breast cancer, Pink Lily volunteers will follow them up.”Pink Lily has consulted widely with the medical personnel in the Federation to organize the Breast Screening Programme, Lea Parris-Cambridge noted.” We have had one to one consultations with private and government doctors to see how best we can assist women at risk of getting breast cancer. The women will be recommended for mammograms through their physicians or through direct contact with Pink Lily. Women who go for mammograms through the Pink Lily coordinated BSP will feel a form that has been evaluated By several medical personnel in the Federation,” Lea Parris-Cambridge, a breast cancer survivor said.Pink Lily has in the past given financial support to women in St. Kitts who have been diagnosed with breast cancer and cervical cancer through its general donations. The targeted amount the charity has set to raise in order to screen 200 women is EC50,000 in the Pink Lily BSP first phase. Lea Parris-Cambridge regretted the delay in implementing the mammogram program and said the charity had to consult widely with the ministries of health and the medical personnel before launching the project. She thanked all those who have donated to the charity.
