Latest update December 5th, 2024 12:06 AM
Overseas-based cancer-focused NGO recommits support to Guyana
October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and Guyana, like the rest of the world, is known to solemnly embrace its significance each year. As the month is being observed this year, moves are apace to help boost the country’s cancer awareness efforts.
OSHAG President,
Ms Carol Bagot
These efforts will be aided by the Organisation for Social and Health Advancement in Guyana (OSHAG), a Non-Governmental Organisation based in New York. The NGO, headed by Guyana-born, Ms Carol Bagot, who currently resides in the US, has over the years offered much needed cancer support to the public health sector.
But with the change of Government this year, Bagot earlier this week met with Minister within the Ministry of Public Health, Dr Karen Cummings; Head of the Ministry’s Diseases Control Department, Dr Kavita Singh, and officials of the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) to reaffirm her organisation’s commitment to help tackle cancer here.
Speaking on the genesis of her organisation which has a membership of mainly medical personnel, Bagot recalled that she had become aware that there were several women from Guyana who were turning up in the US with advanced stages of cancer. “After a while, I recognised, along with others, that there was, to some extent, a lack of education to help people understand the realities of cancer,” recounted Bagot. In fact, she informed during an interview, that some women are of the belief that a lump in their breast, for instance, might be an abscess and are oblivious to the fact that it could be due to cancer.
OSHAG was established in the year 2000 to help counter this glaring challenge. “We have been coming (to Guyana) each year trying to do the educational part regarding cancer…we have done several things,” said Bagot of OSHAG’s commitment to helping to fight cancer.
OSHAG, just last year, facilitated cancer-related training for a number of local nurses, an undertaking that was conducted at the GPHC.
According to Bagot, OSHAG has been responsible for bringing medical personnel, including Doctors, to give support to the local public health sector.
“We come here with a team of Doctors every year and the Doctors go up to New Amsterdam hospital and they do surgeries,” said Bagot, as she related that OSHAG, which is already registered here, has recognised the need for it to have a permanent presence in Guyana.
She is optimistic that OSHAG, in the near future, will be able to construct its own Guyana office, once approval is granted.
Part of OSHAG’s support last year included the establishment of a Chemotherapy Unit at the GPHC. “Our nurses came in and they did the teaching regarding the regimens for chemo, the strengths and trying to assist the local nurses with understanding the protocol for chemo,” Bagot noted.
As an expert in Human Service Administration, Bagot currently holds the position of Chief Executive Officer at an Adult Community Living Arrangement facility for persons with developmental disabilities. She has however taken five weeks off from her income-earning employment to pave the way for the arrival of OSHAG’s medical team, which is slated for October 24 for a stay that is expected to end on November 1, 2015.
During that visit, the team will not only follow-up with the nurses who participated in the chemotherapy training but also conduct a week long health awareness conference at the Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown, Project Dawn facility.
“The nurses (of the team) will be seeing people and they will do refresher courses with the nurses of the GPHC,” said Bagot, as she asserted that the team will also be venturing into the Ancient County of Berbice to give support.
The NGO also has plans to set up a children’s library in New Amsterdam, a facility Bagot observed is needed.
During the visit here too, a fundraising dinner will be held at the Pegasus Hotel on October 31, 2015 to raise funds to further the work of OSHAG, which is poised to soon appoint a local Board of Directors. This move, according to Bagot, is to ensure that “decisions for Guyana will not only be made by overseas people coming and say what should happen.”
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