Let’s learn from Battor Catholic Hospital

All over the world, the incidence of cancers, as well as other diseases, is on the rise, with both men and women not being spared the ravages of these killer diseases.

In our part of the world, people are exposed to all types of cancers and this development has a devastating effect on productivity, particularly in the agricultural sector, which is the backbone of our economy.

Ghana is estimated to have a population of 8.57 million women aged 15 years and older who are at risk of developing cervical cancer.

According to the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Information Centre on Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) and Cancer, current estimates indicated that every year, 3,052 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer, out of which 1,556 died from the disease.

In Ghana, cervical cancer ranks as the most frequent cancer among women between 15 and 44 years, making it the commonest cancer among women in Ghana.

Considering the threat of this disease to the lives of our women, any move to help reduce or eliminate it must be celebrated at all times.

Against this background, the Daily Graphic celebrates the achievement of the Battor Catholic Hospital in the North Tongu District in the Volta Region for developing three applications expected to equip healthcare professionals with the necessary technology to comprehensively screen, detect, analyse and treat cervical cancer.

The applications are the Cervical Cancer Prevention and Training Centre (CCPTC) Mobile Colposcopy app, the CCPTC Cervical Ablative Treatment app and the CCPTC Colposcopy Report Sheet app.

At a function to launch the applications for official use in Battor last week, the Minister of Environment and Science, Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, spoke about the need for such innovation, particularly in the healthcare sector, to ensure that human efforts in the delivery of health care were complemented to enhance healthcare delivery.

In many fields of human endeavour, countries are making major breakthroughs in different areas to help address the many challenges that plague the sectors and continue to deny their populations their potential.

Undoubtedly, the world is being driven by innovation, knowledge and science, hence the need to embrace technological advancement for socio-economic development.

What the Battor Catholic Hospital has achieved is a demonstration of the potential the country has. Nothing should limit us in our quest to come up with innovations that will help address major challenges.

In this regard, we wish to prevail on corporate institutions across the country to deliberately divert a part of their budget on corporate social responsibility (CSR) to support research.

Whether in health or agriculture, it is only through consistent research that we will be able to find local solutions to our local problems. We do not need to import every idea when we have the men and the women blessed with passion to achieve.

We only have to look at the budget for importing applications into the country to help solve problems to appreciate the need to develop such apps in Ghana to save cost and ensure that we localise the solutions to our challenges.

These may be early days yet, but the Battor Catholic Hospital needs tonnes of encouragement and support. The Daily Graphic is optimistic that other institutions will come up with similar solutions.