The Barbados Cancer Society is set to launch a new state-of-the-art mobile clinic within eight months, a $100 000 investment aimed at expanding life-saving breast screening and early detection services to communities island-wide.
Medical Coordinator of the Breast Screening Programme at the Barbados Cancer Society, Dr Shirley Hanoman-Jhagroo, revealed that the new unit has already been ordered and is expected to arrive within eight months.
“The same company that made the first one, British Leyland, they’re very good,” she said following Sunday’s CIBC Walk for the Cure. “We ordered the other one. It would take about eight months because it’s custom-made, and that is costing us… But it’s worth it — this one has done well. Eighteen years is a good time for a vehicle that’s been used almost every day.”
The new mobile unit will replace the programme’s current vehicle, which has served the island for nearly two decades. Dr Hanoman-Jhagroo explained that it will continue the work of taking screening and education into communities, particularly to reach women who may not be able to travel to Bridgetown or Warrens.
“The nurse in there is a lovely person,” she said, describing the current mobile team. “She teaches breast examination and actually performs breast examinations, then refers them to the clinic. That clinic is the best in the Eastern Caribbean — a one-stop breast clinic for early detection.”
She added that the programme has never turned away a patient who could not afford to pay.
“No one has ever been turned away,” Dr Hanoman-Jhagroo said. “If they can’t afford it, my protocol is simple — let the patient have it.”
Dr Hanoman-Jhagroo said the new mobile unit represents another major step forward in the programme’s 23-year journey.
“The Breast Screening Programme has gone in leaps and bounds,” she said. “We want to keep it going, because this is how we save lives.”
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