Cancer Symposium
“The obstacles seem insurmountable but the committee and willingness to work together provides hope for the future”
– Justin Eusebio
The main purpose of the symposium was to create a platform for health care workers in Botswana to discuss issues of cancer care arising from within both the public and private sectors, and share knowledge with visiting delegates from United States, with the goal of improving cancer care, cancer control, and patients outcome.
Final Conference Resolutions
All participants in the conference agreed that cancer is a large and growing public health problem in Botswana A national comprehensive cancer control plan is needed urgently to reduce suffering and provide services at a reasonable cost Equity of access to care should be facilitated by expanding current resources and decentralization of services
- A national comprehensive cancer control plan should address each important facet of cancer control: Prevention, Screening and Early Detection
- Access to prompt and effective treatment, including specialty surgery, drugs and irradiation
- Palliative Care and Survivorship
- Resource mobilization at the community, secondary and tertiary care levels
- Training and recruitment of specialists in medical oncology, radiation oncology, and surgical oncology