WOMEN parliamentarians said they had resolved to undergo voluntary cervical cancer tests in a bid to promote early screening of the disease among women.
FELUNA NLEYA STAFF REPORTER
Addressing stakeholders attending a sexual and reproductive health workshop in Harare last week, Women Parliamentary Caucus chairperson Monica Mutsvangwa said as community leaders, female MPs had seen it fit to get tested and have their results publicised to encourage their constituents to follow suit.
Mutsvangwa said women parliamentarians would be screened at New Start Centres in their respective constituencies.
“MPS are the frontline soldiers of all the electorate out there and if you capacitate the MPs they will be able to carry out their mandate,” Mutsvangwa said.
“MPs encounter all these women who will not be well so if we are equipped with information we will be able to help people in our constituencies.”
She added: “If you are a leader everyone looks up to you so people come to you telling you that they are not well. If we go back equipped with all this information, we will be able to tell them to go for screening to get tested for cancer.
“This will help us also to advocate so that more money can be channelled to cancer issues and also have more NGOs dealing in that area because we are losing life unnecessarily.”
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Former Deputy Prime Minister and MDC-T vice-president Thokozani Khupe was the first to break the silence on cancer when she disclosed that she had cancer of the breast and went on to set up a cancer foundation.
Currently, cervical cancer accounts for 34% of cancers found among women in Zimbabwe and is the second most common cancer in women world-wide, accounting for approximately
500 000 new cases and 275 000 deaths per year.
