Homa Bay Woman Representative Gladys Wanga says her personal experience with cancer motivated her to come up with the Cancer Prevention and Control (Amendment) Bill 2015 which seeks to have cancer as a component under primary health care.
Speaking before the National Assembly Health Committee on Tuesday, Wanga said she was diagnosed with stage four colorectal cancer five years ago.
“Chair this bill is so personal to me because I am speaking from experience. I was diagnosed with cancer and before diagnosis, I could not tell what I was suffering from because sometimes the disease is there, and you do not feel pain. The main issue is that many people have been misdiagnosed because even the doctors themselves cannot tell from the onset that someone has cancer,” she submitted.
“When I sought treatment outside the country, the simple things that a nurse was able to do there, can also be done here but we need to make it a primary healthcare to avoid late diagnosis which in turn becomes difficult to treat leading to deaths which would have been prevented.”
Wanga further called for the training of more oncologists to deal with cancer.
“I would want each county to have at least one oncologist. The government should embark on funding training for oncologists so that we get more of them who can actually tell at an early age that indeed someone has cancer instead of being misdiagnosed with some vitamin deficiency and others being told they early and so on,” she said.
Committee members led by Chairperson Sabina Chege (Murang’a Women Representative) welcomed Wanga’s proposals.
