ASSESSING BREAST CANCER BURDEN AMONGST WOMEN AT GENERAL HOSPITAL KATSINA, STATE NIGERIA

Breast cancer is today becoming one of the serious health issue affecting about 3.2 million worldwide. Its increase is attributed to several factors, like increase in life expectancy, urbanization and adoption of western lifestyles, late diagnosis of breast cancer due to shortages of health personnel and infrastructure among oth-ers. However, incidences of breast cancer in Nigeria, particularly in its northern states, which includes Katsina states appears to be under reported due to lack of comprehensive statistics about number of women of reproductive age afflicted by the disease. Therefore, this paper assessed breast cancer burden amongst women of reproductive age at the General Hospital Katsina, Katsina state Nige-ria. The paper employed qualitative research method, where an in-depth inter-views were held with key informants (i.e. one Medical doctor/General Surgeon, a nurse in-charge of female surgical ward and a breast cancer patient respective-ly). The findings of the study indicates high rate of breast cancer prevalence amongst women of reproductive age attending the hospital for treatment, lack of specialized cancer unit fully equipped with medical facilities and personnel; can-cer cases are handled by general surgeons and nurses; advanced cancer cases beyond the reach of the hospital are referred to nearby teaching hospitals; certain factors associated with socio-economic and socio-cultural also affects early ac-cess to medical health care facilities, thus compounding issues. The study rec-ommends the following: establishment of specialized cancer center at the hospital fully equipped with medical facilities and professionals; collaboration with rele-vant stakeholders to address the problems of high cost of cancer treatment, pa-tients’ education and awareness, and other socio-economic and socio-cultural issues affecting healthcare access.

Keywords:

Breast Cancer, Health Facilities and Personnel, Morbidity and Mortality Rates, Socio-economic and Socio-cultural Women,

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