Women accountants mobilise against cancer scourge

The Society of Women Accountants of Nigeria (Swan) of the Institutes of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) has mobilised its members against the health scourge which has lately turned into destroyer of mostly black women including those of Nigeria.

Swan, in order to sensitise its members and the entire public on early detection, precautions and treatment of cancer had organised a one-day workshop recently in Lagos to tackle the issue.

In her welcome speech, Onome Olaolu, chairperson, Swan noted that similar event was held about 15 years ago organised by one Animashuan. The event then dealt on child bearing.

She observed that this workshop was put together to expose the level of negligence in the system which has been the bane of cancer spread in developing countries including Nigeria. “If you ask me simply what my blood pressure reading is, you will be surprised that I do not even know,” she said.

Responding to why Swan has left all issues of direct links to the national economy to talk about cancer, Onome said that cancer has a lot of economic implications to Nigeria as a nation.

According to the seasoned accountant, once the problem is diagnosed, the victim starts taking frequent sick leaves, the organisation starts paying medical bills frequently, the victim is no longer in the right frame of mind to offer the best to the organisation which translates into degenerating gross domestic product at national level. If the victim dies, every potential he or she is endowed with goes.

“A recent issue happened with our sister, Dora Akunyili. You saw the enormous potential in her which not only Nigeria but also the global community benefited from, but it has ended just like that. Can you value the economic loss the nation has incurred as a result of this? This also applies to former deputy governor of Osun State who also lost her life to this scourge. I tell you, cancer has a lot of economic risks to the nation now and so we as accountants, economists etc are rising to say no to this scourge,” she said.

In her technical paper entitled ‘Cancer’, Modupe Adedeji, senior registrar, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, said that cancer harms the body when damaged cells divide uncontrollably to form lumps or masses of tissues called tumors, they can either be benign or malignant. She noted that if the case is benign, the tumor stay in one spot and demonstrate limited growth. However, where it is malignant two things occur.

In her paper entitled ‘healthy eating’, Abimbola Ajayi, director, Nutrition, Directorate of Family Health & Nutrition, Lagos State Ministry of Health, advised that good and healthy eating can help avoid contact with a generation of terminal diseases. She believes that malnutrition alone could be devastating. Painting a statistics on this, she said that hunger and malnutrition in their different forms, still contribute to at least half of the world’s deaths of young children globally, especially in developing countries, to which Nigeria belongs, and Lagos State is not an exception.

Toyin Taiwo-Olarenwaju, said Cancer was also known as malignant tumor, is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. Possible symptoms are prolonged cough, abnormal bleeding, environmental pollutants, a new lump, unexplained weight loss and a change in bowel movement among others.