Dawood Global Foundation establishes endowment fund for underprivileged breast cancer patients

The Dawood Global Foundation - LADIESFUND has announced the establishment of an endowment fund with a starting balance of Rs5 million for underprivileged breast cancer victims.

Breast cancer survivors attended the brainstorming session on Saturday, emphasizing the need for action against the disease.

According to the patients, lack of awareness prevented them from getting early diagnoses and medical treatment. “There is hope. There is life after cancer,” said Fauzia Khuhro, a breast cancer survivor.

The meeting ended with the launch of a nationwide campaign evolving awareness into action, establishing a legal framework for medical malpractice and medical negligence. This is the fifth year of the awareness campaign run by a former first lady Mrs Samina Alvi Task Force.

The survivors and other participants strongly suggested doing plays, dramas, films, and media shows and using mobile phones to spread awareness to every nook and corner nationwide including rural areas and fight against the disease. They asked people to keep a vigilant eye on changes in breasts and consult doctors as soon as they feel anything wrong for the early diagnosis.

“The endowment fund is an escrow account where we are collecting funds beginning with Rs5 million with the help of Sima Kamil, a former deputy governor of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and as well as former president of UBL Bank,” Tara Uzra Dawood, President, Dawood Global Foundation – LADIESFUND said while talking to Business Recorder on sideline of the 5th Breast Cancer POWWOW.

She said the cancer treatment is so expensive and beyond the affordability of a vast majority of people in Pakistan. In some cases, it costs Rs300,000 for medical treatment including half of the cost subsidized by some pharmaceutical firms. “But yet half (of the cost) is still too much for the ordinary average person.”

“The fund has been established for breast cancer victims who cannot afford the treatment.”

Dawood said the meeting ended with resolutions including launching a nationwide awareness campaign evolving into action, increasing awareness for self-examination and mammograms, establishing the endowment fund and issuing of white paper for medical malpractice, and evolving a legal framework to help women who had suffered from medical negligence and breast cancer treatment.

Sima Kamil, a breast cancer survivor, said “The awareness sessions did not change (patients) behaviors…This is time for the action.”

She said one out of eight women is at risk or diagnosed with breast cancer. Many diagnoses are made for stage-3 cancer. “If you feel something, don’t sit on it…go for a checkup.”

Breast cancer survivor Fauzia Khuhro said when she was diagnosed with the disease she felt she was going to die the next day. But she got cured through medical treatment along with emotional support and a lot of care from the family.

“There is hope. There is life after cancer.”

Male breast cancer survivor Dr Faizullah Abbasi said you know your body better than anyone else. So people need to go to a doctor when they find some unknown changes in their body. He said he went through the same experiences as women do like surgery and chemotherapy and got cured.

“I never stopped working and joined the office on the second day of my first medical treatment. I felt down on the third and fourth days, but up from the fourth day and onward….Don’t think about the disease at all because it is there in our minds,” he said, adding he continued to teach math to a village girl, kept reading books, and played guitar for her wife every evening.

The participants at the meeting included bankers, drama and dance artists, teachers, students and publishers, sportspersons, and journalists like Mrs Samina Alvi, Ameena Siyid, Sheema Kermani, and Shahnaz Ramzi.