By Dr. Ntombi Muchuchuti (PhD) | Executive Director
Kidzcan wants to share a preview of 2015, as well as mention the key issues that took place during these past 3 months. The festive season was not the best moment for children with cancer. It was a sad Christmas and Santa walked into a ward full of very sick and sad children. Kidzcan witnessed the highest number of mortality rate in a while. The fact that children come from various parts of the country to access clinical cancer care (which is specialised) and can only be offered in one Central Hospital in the country, means, most of the very sick children have to travel all the way for treatment. Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals is situated in Harare and is a training Institution, which means, most specialists are resident there. This means some patients travel more than 800km, over 2-3 days to access cancer clinical services everytime they need review. Sometimes they arrive late when the cancer is very advanced, and worn them down. During such time, the treatment cannot wear the symptoms down, however, many times it wears their little bodies down.
The distance the families travel has increased the defaulter rate as well as the mortality rate. Kidzcan has worked frantically to ensure that cancer services are accessed by the children who require them. The organisation has been providing transport assistance, in terms of bus fares and phoning patients and their caregivers, to remind them of their review dates as well as check on their wellbeing. For those patients that are closer to Parirenyatwa, Kidzcan does homes visits to ensure patients do not miss their review dates.
To date, Kidzcan has registered and assisted 1513 patients since 2012 (when Kidzcan database was established). A total of 266 (reported) children have lost the battle to cancer since 2012. Kidzcan has a national coverage, though in the past years, there is significant work that has been done in Harare, Mashonaland Central, Mashonaland East, Matabeleland North and Bulawayo Provinces. A total number of 273 children were registered by end of 2015, and 36 children have been registered since January to date. However, a total of 373 are active in Kidzcan database, this is due to the high defaulter rate as well as children with non confirmed cancers being assisted. This is an ethical issue, as cancer can only be confirmed through diagnostic investigations, which are normally paid for by Kidzcan. During the month of December only, 11 children lost the battle to cancer, and today one of Kidzcan's greatest warriors Kuda lost the fight. He was waiting to be flown to South Africa for advanced medicines, and he could not make it. Kuda fought with so much courage and conquered the pain.
The fact that each child requires various services continuously depending on the protocol/management profile, some children get services daily, weekly or even monthly depending on the type of cancer, condition, stage of cancer, management protocol and severity of the condition therefore, Kidzcan exceeded all planned targets for the year 2015. The following new targets were reached:
Through the assistance from Kidzcan (diagnostics), there is improved accuracy in the management and care of children with cancer because of the ability to detect the presence, location and type of cancers affecting children. The patients with blood related cancers suffer poor prognosis because of continuous loss of blood. Therefore, the provision of services has evidently prolonged life and reduced morbidity and mortality ratio.
The defaulter rate has significantly reduced by 60%, otherwise those patients who would have not come back because of financial problems, distance, social and religious beliefs, are now coming back for reviews, through Kidzcan assistance.
Preview of Kidzcan Services Offered
Type of Services 2015 Cumulatively
There are many lessons learnt for Kidzcan as an orgamisation and family. Firstly, Kidzcan has realised that there is intense need for cancer services in the rural and hard to get communities rather than the urban and proximal communities (Harare). The organisation has also realised that, it is very critical to work with the Ministry of Education, considering that the children spend more than 80% of their time at school, hence if trained, the teachers can help in early detection and referral of childhood cancer. It necessary to work and create awareness within other government ministries and stakeholder especially those that handled/produce or work with carcinogenic materials that pre-dispose individuals to cancer. Kidzcan has a very beautiful and new-faced website. All our friends and partners are encouraged to browse so as to understand the great work that we have done, and continue to do, (http://www.kidzcanzimbabwe.org/).
To date, Kidzcan has raised $46 197, with an outstanding balance of $ 33 803 to be raised
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
