Médecins Sans Frontières - The Women of Blantyre EP01 ENG

Unique Identifier Code / URN MSF326017

Date taken / Date Recorded 07/03/2020 12:00 AM

Country Malawi

Commissioning section MSF-FRANCE

Photographer / videographer / producer Armelle Loiseau

Copyright Armelle Loiseau/MSF

Usage Rights (MSF) External Media, MSF Fundraising, MSF Publications, Social Media

Formal Consent Copy available yes

Editor's rating ★★★★★ (C)

Video format h264 (Main) (avc1 / 0x31637661)

Duration 6m26s

Maximum Size 1920px × 1080px 653.00 MB

Additional Information / Shotlist Martha Morris
What prevents women from coming is that it concerns their private parts and they're embarrassed. Some are also scared of it hurting. If they knew how it was done they wouldn’t be apprehensive.

MSF presents
The Women of Blantyre

Episode 01 – If they knew how it was done they wouldn’t be apprehensive
Fellister Wyson
I’d heard about cervical cancer because one of my classmates had it. She died of it. She’d been sent to Queen Elizabeth Hospital for an examination and she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. It had already spread to the uterus and other of her organs. She wasn’t given any treatment, so she just waited to die. She was 24.

Dr Masamba, Ministry of Health oncologist
In terms of cervical cancer in Malawi the numbers are overwhelming. And, if you look at the global statistics, Malawi is probably the first or second country with the highest number of cases of cervical cancer.

In Malawi cervical cancer kills over 2,000 women every year
Blantyre district

MSF has set up a cervical cancer programme in the district

“MSF has developed a dedicated, free-of-charge cervical cancer programme in the district”.

The package of care starts with raising awareness and screening
Tifera Botomani Mapasa, Health promotion supervisor, MSF
We’re going to Bangwe, more specifically to a rural area, where we’re going to educate people about cervical cancer and raise awareness so that more women go for cervical cancer screening.

So, he’s saying sometimes we hear people saying that a person can develop cancer because of the type of food he or she eats. Is that true?
The truth of the matter is that the cervical cancer is there. Maybe one or two of our relatives passed on because of cervical cancer, but we didn’t know. For instance, my own grandmother passed on because of cervical cancer, but I didn’t know back then it was cervical cancer.

Right now, Tionge is giving some brief background about the cervix, where it is located. She’s showing them diagrams of the cervix itself and explaining more about cervical cancer.

Bertha Lembani
Women talk among themselves about this disease, that it’s dangerous. But, we don’t know what to do, because we don’t know what the cancer is, how it starts... We talk about it, but that’s it because we don’t know what we can do.

To be honest, I’ve never been screened. But with what I’ve learnt today, tomorrow I’m going to go and get screened. I’ll walk to the clinic in Bangwe. If I leave at 8 in the morning, I’ll be there at around 8.30.

Cervical cancer is very common, but often goes undetected because the health care system is overstretched.
Few health centres offered cervical cancer screening in Blantyre before MSF’s intervention

Can you open your legs?
I'm going to apply the vinegar I told you about.
It’ll feel a bit cold.
Winnie Saiti Nhlema, Nurse, MSF
My job is to screen women for cervical cancer using acetic acid. We call it a visual inspection. There’s a myth that they come with. For example, they’ve heard that to do the screening the uterus has to be taken out.

Where did you hear about cervical cancer screening?
Here.
Now we’ll wait for the result.
Will it take an hour?
No, only one minute.

Martha Morris
I have to tell my friends that it’s essential. They need to know how important it is to get screened.

Elida Howa
So if you’ve seen something and it’s bothering you, you should go to the hospital as soon as you can to get screened. I tell people the disease I’ve suffered from is really hard.
Elida suffered from the disease for many months before being diagnosed.

Dr George Kassim Chininda
Gynaecologist, MSF
The only challenge that comes from screening is that we know there are three results that can come out: first, you're normal, and that's safe and good for you. Number two is you have a positive lesion. If it's treatable at that health facility, you're also safe. You're well and good. But it only becomes a challenge, a huge challenge, when you have a suspicious lesion that you need a pathology test, a biopsy, for.

36-year old Flora found out she had the disease in January 2019.

Flora Chiguduli
When I went to get screened, they told me I had cervical cancer. But to be sure, a sample of tissue had to be taken and sent to Mwaiwathu to confirm it really was cancer.

Dr George Kassim Chininda
Gynaecologist, MSF

At the moment, in the whole country, there's only one public hospital where you can actually do a histopathology of these samples, and that's in Lilongwe. Now, what does that mean? It means that, even though there’s this huge burden of cases, very few of them will get access to the actual care that they require.

Coming up – Don’t lose hope

The little money we were earning we used to get to the hospital.
You have to choose carefully which patients you want to operate on.