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An international training workshop for medical doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals has been held here.

It aimed at helping to improve the quality of care for children with cancer.

The training formed part of a three-year World Child Cancer Implementation Programme in Ghana, in partnership with the Pediatric Oncology Units of the Komfo Anokye and Korle-Bu Teaching Hospitals, to develop a network of childhood cancer treatment units across the country.

The workshop brought together experts from the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in the United Kingdom, Red Cross Hospital of Cape Town in South Africa, as well as Ghanaian experts in child cancer management.

In an address, the Head of the Oncology Unit at KATH, Dr. Vivian Paintsil, said the workshop was timely as it would add to the participants’ knowledge on the signs and symptoms, as well as methods of investigation and treatment “when it comes to the various cancer cases that are brought to the hospital”.

According to her, the training would go a long way to improve local capacity on burkitis lymphoma (cancer of the lymphatic system), neuroblastoma (cancer of nerve tissues) and palliative care for terminally ill patients.

She disclosed that the partnership with World Child Cancer for the past eight years, had greatly helped the Oncology Unit of Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital as online lectures were being held for nurses and doctors at the unit by facilitators from the Royal Hospital.

Dr. Paintsil noted that such partnership was improving the quality of care of the healthcare professionals for children with cancer through sharing the sharing of knowledge, technology and organisational skills.

The facilitator of the training, Dr. Emma Laurensen called for collective efforts in the treatment of cancer not only among children but adults as well adding that it should be taken seriously.

“Cancer treatment needs to be taken very seriously, because the rate of curing childhood cancer, in particular, is very high and it must be treated with the needed attention it is supposed to have”, Dr. Laurensen stated.