Online Reporter
Robin Muchetu
Health and Gender Editor
A TEAM of specialist breast surgeons from the United Kingdom is in Zimbabwe conducting a high-level masterclass for local nurses and doctors aimed at strengthening their capacity to diagnose and treat breast cancer.
The week-long programme, hosted at United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH) in collaboration with the Association of Breast Surgeons-UK (ABS-UK), is equipping frontline medical staff with life-saving skills in early detection, diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer.
The masterclass marks a major milestone in the country’s efforts to localise advanced cancer care, which previously required referrals to South Africa or India.
Dr Munyaradzi Magara, a specialist breast surgeon and head of the UBH breast cancer unit, said the training represents a major leap forward for breast cancer care in the country.
“We started last week with nurses, teaching them how to recognise symptoms and make sound decisions for early diagnosis. The ultimate goal is to ensure patients get to the right place, at the right time and with a sense of urgency,” he said.
“This has been managed because of teamwork. We also had training on the use of a shared data recording system to record information about breast cancer patients.”
Eight local surgeons received hands-on training in theatre, assisted by UK specialists. Other cadres, including radiographers, oncologists and pathologists, were also engaged in multidisciplinary training.
“We went into the theatre and delivered high-end surgeries to the people. Some of the treatments done are those that we had to send patients out for to South Africa or India. We did them here at UBH,” said Dr Magara.
He noted that since adopting new protocols and training methods, UBH has considerably reduced the breast cancer diagnosis window from six months to just one week, a turnaround now being replicated in Gwanda and Beitbridge.
Dr Magara said, despite the progress, breast cancer remains the second leading cause of cancer deaths among women in Zimbabwe, with 2 000 new cases annually, and half of these patients do not survive beyond three years.
“We are, therefore, here to train cadres to look into this problem and mitigate it adequately,” he said.
The breast cancer training programme is the result of a multi-year partnership with ABS-UK, which started with the first symposium in 2019. Dr Magara and fellow specialist Dr Simba Mungazi trained in the UK between 2020 and 2022 and brought back essential skills.
“It has been a journey of training. In 2019, we had our first symposium, and in 2020, I went for training for two years in the UK together with Dr Simba Mungazi from Harare. When we returned, we thought of imparting skills, but we were just the two of us and could not do it ourselves,” said Dr Magara.
