I plan to send a final note on the blog with selected photos that you might enjoy. Sarah tells me this blog will be left here for a while. I will try to get the photos posted by the end of this week.
Yesterday we had lunch with a professor and his wife and 2 children. They are a young couple and she is a veternarian - researcher on disease of animals and he is a professor in the same college that this project is in. He has conducted impressive research on human reactions to events, how young people make their decisions. Their boy is 4 and a girl is 10 and are bi-lingual with English and Malay language. They met in the US where he is from and moved here; they take frequent trips back to the US to see his family and try to bridge the miles so the children know both cultures and both families. He is a favorite teacher here because he doesn't just lecture but engages the students in dialogue.
When we made comments about the lack of facilities to allow women to have mammograms, she was very surprised because she didn't believe anyone would have trouble getting checked in Malaysia. She is considered a government employee. I had a great time with the kids; the boy loves dinosaurs and could name them all, along with his soccer heros and of course all the action figures. The girl loves the Princess collections, especially Cinderella. I promised to make them some pants with dinosaurs and princesses on them.
Sharan and I then had dinner later with Maznah, Othman and their two daughters. One daughter is home from Egypt where she is starting her 2nd year in medical school. When I asked about her choice of Eqypt, they said that she tested high on her final scores from high school and she was determined by the Malaysian government to go into medicine and they chose Egypt for her. We compared notes on Cairo since I have been there about 6 times and she likes the medical school and said the hospitals are very modern, but Cairo and surrounding areas are not modern but overcrowded and very dirty. I remember our guide in Cairo telling us that they have very little rain in Cairo but when it does, the sand and dirt washes off all the buildings to form huge mud puddles everywhere. Cairo look gray/brown everywhere.
The other daughter is in boarding school. The converstion quickly turned to where the truth lies about accessibility to good checkups for breast cancer and then treatment. It is all about those that have money and those that don't. Those that have money for individual insurance can get checkups on a regular basis, can choose the doctor they want and get annual mammograms - as long as they can find a place that has the equipment and qualified doctors. If a woman with insurance gets breast cancer, she can get surgery, chemo, radiation, and tamoxifan. Mascetomy is the only choice here. Those that work in government jobs such as professors at UPM have this coverage. But that leaves huge numbers of women and their families that have no insurance and the government allows them only access to medical care within their region. That is where the problem is.
There is a shortage of doctors who handle breast cancer/cancer (50) for the whole country and the majority of them work for the private hospitals that pay a better salary. There is a shortage of mammogram machines with the majority at KL. There is a huge shortage of Oncologists and Oncolgy nurses. Putrajaya, where the US Embassy and most governmental buildings are and many governmental employees live, has no Oncologist. We have already found that the majoriy of Oncology nurses have no training at all in oncology. So there it is! It is very bleak and almost a death sentence for women who get breast cancer here and don't have private insurance.
Everyone seems to have a theory about what causes breast cancer,with a popular theory connected to life style and eating Western food. Did I mention that Kentucky Fried and Pizza Hut are the big favorites,followed closely with McDonalds? Othman drank Cocoa Cola while we talked and said he bought it because we came to dinner.
We talked for hours last night on strategies that might work to help the situation here. The Center for Cancer Care Education is on a very tight budget and Maznah and Othman are so dedicated to the cause; they keep it going with much of their own salaries. Rosemary, Sharan and I volunteer our time and pay our own expenses when we are here. I know this is only 1 country of many in the world that leaves their people in this tough situation. If only the government would buy lots of mammography equipment, but then specialists are needed to run the equipment; if only there were at least a cancer specialist/doctor in every region who would be willing to work for the government; if only the nurses all had training as oncologist nurses and then if only there were Oncologists and Genetic Counselors.
I know Maznah and Othman will keep trying. Maznah struggles with her health issues that have resulted from Chemo and Othman supports her in the work and works his magic to keep funding going for the Center. Sharan has spent this past year helping them with research that is valuable to the project in trying to find a way to bridge the spiritual with the medical but also to meet the requirements of UPM as a research center on cancer. Rosemary keeps up her support for the volunteers and with outstanding training programs and my job is now to help with continuing proessional education segment and now to write a booklet for cancer patients who need help in making the right choices to survive.
So thanks for reading all of this blog. I am headed home with lots of ideas to keep this effort going. I am also reminded of how incredibly lucky we are to be in the USA.
By the way, you can find a photo of Rosemary and Maznah if you Google "Malaysian Women" and scroll past the "Hot Malaysan Women" and the last photo on the first page is of Rosemary, Maznah and the former Queen of Malaysia." Here is the article. The hot women, indeed! Hee! Hee! Sandy
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