By Dr. Ntombi Muchuchuti (PhD) | Executive Director
Since its formalisation in 2009, Kidzcan has registered over 2000 children with cancer and related blood disorders. Zimbabwe has two health centres offering diagnostic and treatment facilities for cancer and each facility covers a 500 km radius. Due to the limited treatment coverage many of these young patients have to travel more than 800km for specialised childhood cancer services. Owing to the distances that they have to travel and other challenges, less than 20% of children registered with Kidzcan come back for services. Kidzcan, being aware of the challenges provides transport fares for both the children and their parents/caregivers to ensure continued access to clinical care and management of childhood cancer.
Kidzcan provided 83 patients with transport support in the last three months. This support covers travel from home to the hospital especially patients returning for medical reviews and chemotherapy treatment. The lack of skilled manpower and resources in various health institutions necessitates outsourcing of some services such as Diagnostic Imaging. Kidzcan pays for ambulance travel and transfers between hospitals and specialised services such as Diagnostic Imaging. Because most patients are arriving at hospitals with advanced ailments, it makes it difficult to transport patients without medical supervision hence, the use of an ambulance to transport patients between facilities is necessary.
Early this year, Kidzcan lost one of its patients who died on the bus while making a 600km journey home to be with his family. This patient was very ill and was discharged from hospital for palliative care at home. In the absence of suitable transportation the child and his mother were forced to use public transport to make the journey home. It is while making this journey that the child passed on. This not only affected the mother whose child died in her arms, it touched the lives of the passengers on the bus and the driver who witnessed this difficult occurrence.
As Kidzcan, we believe that it is important for critically ill patients to be transported in a dignified and comfortable manner, be it to or from diagnostic testing, transfers between hospitals or as they make their journey home for palliative care. We also believe that the presence of skilled personnel gives the patients and caregivers comfort knowing that there is someone there to assist should the need arise.
Help us raise $64 900 to purchase an ambulance, so far we have raised $100, and we still have a long way to go before we reach our target.
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