Panaji: Breast cancer screening of 10,000 women across Goa has been successfully completed under the ‘Swasth Mahila, Swasth Goa’ initiative of cricketer Yuvraj Singh’s YouWeCan Foundation, the SBI Foundation and the Government of Goa., a senior funtionary said.
The initiative which was launched in October 2021, aims to screen 1 lakh women in Goa for breast cancer, thereby ensuring that 50% of the age eligible female population in the State is screened.
In a press statement issued here, the YouWeCan Foundation has said that free of cost breast cancer screening is being conducted at 35 Health Centres across Goa along with multiple outreach camps.
“Till date, 142 outreach camps have been held in various parts of Goa. Of the 10,000 women who have been screened so far, 7 women have been diagnosed positive for breast cancer and their treatment has already commenced,” the press statement adds.
All the suspected cases have been referred to the Goa Medical College & Hospital and district hospitals for further investigations and complete treatment.
Goa’s Director of Health Services Geeta Kakodkar has congratulated the initiative and said that early detection is the key and screening eligible women is a big step forward towards this. “I am sure our sustained efforts will reach all eligible women and benefit them,”she added.
Cricketer Yuvraj Singh is quoted in the press statement as saying “ Breast Cancer is the most common form of cancer in India but around 70 per cent of the breast cancer patients in our country get diagnosed in advanced stages due to lack of screening.”
“ Our endeavour through the ‘Swasth Mahila, Swasth Goa’ initiative is to provide a screening platform to the entire female population of Goa for early detection and timely treatment,” he added.
Singh said that now that the project has picked up momentum in Goa, we aim to achieve our target of screening 1 lakh women across the State in the next 18 months.
“In the near future, we plan to scale up our breast cancer screening initiative by taking it to other states. Our ultimate goal is to make it a pan-India initiative and help women across India have access to early detection mechanism for breast cancer,” he added.
Lalit Mohan, President and COO, SBI Foundation, said that “SBI Foundation is proud to be funding this unique initiative, Swasth Mahila Swasth Goa, to create awareness on breast cancer, break stigma and mobilise women folk to come forward and take charge of their health and thereby making Goa a model state for breast cancer screening.
