A new purpose built Parent Home at Mbingo Baptist Hospital
We now have permission to proceed with the building of a hostel for mothers of children with cancer treated under our programme. The plans have been approved and costed. Land was given in 2015 by the hospital board and foundations will be laid in January 2016. At present the mother of a child receiving chemotherapy…
Clinical work at Banso Baptist Hospital
Our childrens cancer treatment service was pioneered at Banso Baptist Hospital by Dr Peter McCormick and Prof Peter Hesseling. In terms of infrastructure our programme is best developed at this hospital with a dedicated childrens cancer ward, a drug-mixing room and a childrens playroom. On a round of the childrens cancer (Burkitt) ward at Banso…
A Comprehensive Childhood Cancer Treatment Service
When Dr Peter McCormick and Prof Peter Hesseling began the childhood cancer treatment programme at Banso Baptist Hospital (BBH) in 2003 there was an urgent need to develop a new treatment protocol for Burkitt’s lymphoma, the common childhood cancer – a protocol which was suited to a resource limited setting. It was not possible simply…
A trip to Sabongari
Last June we were warned by Prof Tih, Director of the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Board not to travel to Sabongari on the Nigerian border. We wanted to visit our newest parent group. “You will be two white faces in the market place ” he said ” and there is a risk of kidnap”. The…
The mother who didn’t know
One of the things that I enjoy most about these Cameroonian trips is follow-up visits to children in their homes in the bush. It is fun searching for a child with only the village name as his or her address and when we do find a child we are usually welcomed by the whole village.…
A brief summary of the collaborative Wilms’ tumour project
Wilms’ tumour is a childhood cancer of the kidney. This tumour can be treated in Low Income Countries. SIOP is the International Society of Paediatric Oncology. PODC stands for Paediatric Oncology in Developing Countries, and is a subgroup of SIOP. This project comprises 5 African countries as seen on this poster, the aim of the…
Take pekin for Baptist hospital
We now have treatment programmes at the 3 Baptist hospitals of Western Cameroon for four child cancers: Burkitt’s lymphoma, the most common cancer and Wilms tumour (protocols designed by Prof P.Hesseling) and also more recently retinoblastoma and Kaposi sarcoma. BTMAT supplies the drugs and pays the in-patient treatment costs of these children. Of equal importance…
A New Treatment Programme for the Eye Cancer, Retinoblastoma
Retinoblastoma is a cancer of the pigment layer of the eye, the same layer which gives the iris its colour. Some children inherit a gene or genes which predispose to this cancer. The overall incidence is slightly greater in Africa than in the UK but it is still relatively rare compared with Burkitt’s lymphoma. As…
A visit from nurse Vera
On the morning of Sunday 23rd June 2013, there was heavy rainfall in Cameroon. I left my residence in Kumbo that afternoon for Douala airport, and arrived there next day. I boarded Air France for Charles de Gaulle (CDG) Paris on 25th June. From CDG the next morning my flight was delayed and I arrived…
CBC Childhood Cancer Symposium “A Decade of Dedication” Mutengene Health Services Complex – 29 November 2013
Prof Peter Hesseling and Dr Paul Wharin make biannual visits to the three Baptist hospitals to encourage our Cameroonian colleagues who provide continuing care for children with cancer and to collate results of the cancer treatment protocols designed by Prof Hesseling. We hold frequent workshops in which teams from the three hospitals come together to…