Firm Donates N2m To Cancer Centre

Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, has donated two million
naira to the Port Harcourt Comprehensive Cancer Centre (PHCCC).

Presenting the cheque in Port Harcourt last week, Mrs Effiem
Jackson Abbah, a doctor in the Medical Department of Mobil urged the recipient
to judiciously use the fund and noted that true to their principle that “a well
is more than where they drill,” the company care about the people in host
communities and their employees.

Dr. Abbah added that this explains why the company takes
seriously any day set aside by World Health Organisation (WHO) to mark any
disease.

Commending Mobil for the move and urging Mobil and other
companies to make cancer the bedrock of their corporate social responsibility
(CSR), a member of the board of trustees of PHCCC, Dr. T.C. Osanakpo (SAN) said
the objective of PHCCC is to frontally tackle cancer in the country.

The Chief executive of PHCCC, Reverend Canon Dr. Kin
J-Egwuonwu in his remark quoted WHO as saying that cancer is the number one
killer of mankind and kills more people than HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria put
together.

“According to the International Agency for Research  on Cancer, there are about 100,000 cases of
cancer every year in Nigeria, out of which about 80,000 die. This means that 10
people die in Nigeria everyone hour. In other countires who are on top of the
cancer situation it is one in five that is if they have 100,000 cancer cases,
20,000 will die 80,000 will survive. In Nigeria, it is the reverse,” Dr. Y.
Egwuonwu explained.

He attributed the Nigerian situation to lack of
infrastructure to diagnose cancer on time and handle it.

He pointed out that India was able to achieve the 120
centres through corporate support from none profit organisations.

“As you know our Lagos centre is not a comprehensive cancer
centre. It is nothing anything near it. It is just a three-storey building that
has facilities for cancer detection and free and subsidised screening follow up
and treatment at the early and intermediate stage. But talk about a
comprehensive cancer centre where you do all manner of investigations and
treatment for cancer we have none in Nigeria,” he stressed.

He faulted the notion that government should do everything
and enjoined the private sector to borrow the Indian example.

Vivian-Peace Nwinaene