Saturday, May 29, 2021.
End of week 1 (of 2 weeks).
Hectic week for our 14 trainees:
- They can all screen women with Visual Inspection with Acetic acid (VIA), and take samples for HPV DNA testing.
- They learned how to make their own cotton swabs for their screening programme.
- They learned how to take sharp images with the mobile colposcope (the EVA system).
- A Medical Officer from our Department of Surgery has taken them through breast cancer screening.
They had lectures from 9am today till 6pm today (Saturday) on cervical cancer prevention (with a lunch break and a few breaks).
Lectures continue tomorrow.
Next Wednesday, they will be at Mepe, the next town, where we expect to screen some 200 women ‘for free’.
Included in the cost of training for each trainee is the cost of screening 15 women by VIA. This means some women do not have to pay to be screened. This ensures that there are always clients for trainees to screen to get hands on experience. With the current 14 trainees, it means some 210 women can have access to ‘free’ screening.
The CCPTC uses this opportunity to offer ‘free’ screening services to women in surrounding communities in the district and nearby districts.