As the global community commemorated the 2015 World Cancer Day, Skye Bank Plc has demonstrated its commitment to public health and safety by promoting a public awareness campaign about the disease.
The bank, in collaboration with a non-governmental organization, COPE Foundation, focused on the menace of breast cancer and embarked on a sensitization campaign to get women come out for free breast cancer.
The belief is that the public can learn more about the causes of cancer, its prevention, control and treatment through the sensitization exercise.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), about 70 per cent of all cancer deaths occurr in low- and middle-income countries. Deaths from cancer worldwide are projected to continue to rise to over 13.1 million in 2030. Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for 7.6 million deaths (around 13% of all deaths) in 2008.
Describing cancer as one of the leading causes of death worldwide, especially in the developing countries where inadequate medical care and lack of awareness about the disease have combined to make it very deadly, the bank’s Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Timothy Oguntayo, said there was need for a concerted effort by both the government and the private sector to collaborate to fight the scourge of cancer in our society where incidence of the disease is on the increase.
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“At Skye Bank, we have taken up the challenge of working with other publicly spirited organisations and philanthropists not only to promote awareness about the scourge but also to facilitate screening, early detection and effective care for those afflicted. Our concern and desire to stem the growing incidence of the scourge date back to several years ago when we partnered with some non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to call attention to the threat posed by the disease.”
“It was in furtherance of our commitment towards contributing to the fight against the high incidence of cancer, especially breast cancer in the country that we partnered with an NGO known as Care, Organisation and Public Enlightenment (COPE) Foundation, under our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives, by donating two breast cancer screening machines to it to facilitate screening and early detection of the disease”, he explained.
The Skye Bank boss pledged that the bank would continue to support worthy social causes in the health sector to improve the wellbeing and healthcare of Nigerians, saying a healthy nation is a wealthy nation.
Oguntayo called on other corporate organizations to join in the fight against cancer by supporting various programmes and initiatives by NGOs and the government to reduce the cancer scourge and mortality rate in our society.
The Managing Partner of COPE Foundation, Ebun Anozie, in her comments, called for the establishment of cancer care centres in the country where specialists would be available to provide care and treatment to patients and survivors.
Hope Moses-Ashike
