Dr. Beatrice Wiafe Addai Visits Varian Medical Systems

Dr. (Mrs.) Beatrice Wiafe Addai, Founder and President of Breast Care International (BCI) Ghana, and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Peace and Love Hospitals in Accra and Kumasi, visited the headquarters of Varian Medical Systems and factory, manufactures of today�s state of the art cancer fighting linear accelerators, in Palo Alto, San Francisco, California, USA. Mr. Vincent Roufle, a friend of BCI and Peace and Love Hospitals, who has been a regular participant of the BCI Ghana Walk for the Cure for Breast Cancer and accompanied Dr. Beatrice Wiafe Addai, with Ms A. Brooke and took her round the Headquarters, interacted with executive staff and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Dow Wilson. The CEO of Varian, Dow Wilson was decorated by Dr Mrs Beatrice Wiafe Addai, with Ghanaian apparels after her presentation on the Breast Cancer situation in Ghana, advocacy and the role of PALSA (Peace and Love Breast Cancer Survivors) in Helping Others using Personal Experiences �HOPE, IN DEMYSTIFYING AND REDUCING THE STIGMA SURROUNDING THE DISEASE in Ghana. The meeting was described as very rich, and gave chance to go through their comprehensive product portfolio and their mission to make cancer a chronic and manageable disease. Dr Beatrice Wiafe took time to visit the Palo Alto Medical Foundation where patient treatment could be seen and clinical workflow discussed. �We believe this was a major step in establishing the basis for the comprehensive cancer center of Excellence in the Peace and Love Hospitals.� At meetings in community centers and churches and in interviews with local and international media outlets, she explains the importance of early detection and consequences of delaying treatment. Her organizations have started working with schools to inform girls and the youth in general about breast cancer, targeting a demographic that not only improves awareness in the younger generation but also help spread knowledge as girls talk to family and friends. Since its inception in 2002 BCI has initiated various strategies including awareness creation, health education, teaching breast self examination, and referral system to demystify the disease and enhance appreciation of women and their role in the society BCI has also relied on Voluntary staff and donations from benevolent individuals and organizations to travel almost every weekend and sometimes weekdays to conduct breast cancer outreach programmes, mostly in the rural communities where most women reside and are more vulnerable. Dr. Beatrice Wiafe Addai, believes strongly that midwives community health and registered nurses, who happen to be at the first point of call, in the communities, must have some knowledge in the common cancers especially breast and cervical cancers, yet Ghana has no specialized oncology Nursing schools to train these nurses in oncology. It is in view of this conviction that BCI, Ghana National Cancer (NCC) of USA and Krebsallianz of Germany, with support from Johnson and Johnson of USA organized and trained more than 200 nurses selected from various health facilities across Ghana to professionally equip them both in theory and practice in modern diagnosis and management of cancers in general with special emphasis on the most common women cancers (Breast and Cervix)