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CIS’ Volt club donates 200 mastectomy pillows to LUTH’s breast clinic

By Eniola Daniel
05 April 2018   |   2:54 am
A representative of the President of the Club, Dopuala Benibo, at the official presentation of the equipment, said: “One of the goals of the club is to identify needs in immediate communities and to make a difference through communal engagement.

The students and coordinator of the club, Bukky Peters donating the 200 mastectomy pillows to the management of the clinic

*Hospital alerts to 100 per cent rise in cases within last decade
The Volt club of Children’s International School (CIS), Lekki phase 1, Lagos has donated 200 pieces of Mastectomy pillows to the, Breast Cancer Clinic at Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) Idi-Araba.

A representative of the President of the Club, Dopuala Benibo, at the official presentation of the equipment, said: “One of the goals of the club is to identify needs in immediate communities and to make a difference through communal engagement.

“One of the needs we identified was in breast cancer. Women with breast cancer all over Nigeria are devastated when they learn the news. What is worse is that some of them do not have the money to pay for the processes needed for recovery. This is an issue, and it is rapidly growing. Which is why, the Volt Club decided to partner with the cause, ‘Run for A Cure Africa’ an initiative that provides money for women with the inability to pay for treatment.”

Benibo further explained: “At the assembly in our school, we had a short skit to create awareness of breast cancer and how to help make a difference. The reason we are here to support the breast clinic. We have heard how hard they work to source for funds for women who can’t afford to finance their treatment.

“Last year, we made 20 mastectomy pillows, but this year, we are here to present you with 200 mastectomy pillows for the women who have had a mastectomy. This is to show that there are people who care. It is with great pleasure, that we are here to present you with these pillows and we hope to have more people who will support the clinic.”

Mastectomy is the removal of one or both breasts, partially or completely. The mastectomy pillows protect the sore from rubbing the arm.Other students at the donation programme include Michael Onyeka-Patrick and Okikiolu Ajayi

On her part, Coordinator of the club, Bukky Peters who lead the students alongside the assistant coordinator of the club, Thomas Abogunrin, said: “The volt club is a volunteer club that identify the need of people in the community and help to make a change; These pillows weren’t only made by Volt Club students, students from senior school volunteered to help us stuff the pillows, cut the material and teachers made financial donations to get the resources so, it is a way of teaching the young people on how to volunteer to help other people even if it is just a little thing that they have to do.”

Commending the students gesture, a Professor of Anatomic Pathology and Deputy Chairman of Medical Advisory Committee, LUTH, Daramola Adetola, said: “This is a wonderful gesture, very thoughtful of the students to do this; it shows children in Nigeria that they can also help to make things better in this country, reach out to people who are in need and I really applaud the students for doing this. 200 pillows is a lot; last year, they gave us 20 pillows, am told that while they were doing this, they also created awareness about breast cancer, which is also good for them to know earlier in life that some diseases can be prevented, even if they are not preventable if detected early, you can manage it.

“For women who develop breast cancer, about one in four of those breast lumps would be a malignant, the most breast lumps are benign but about 25 per cent of them could be malignant. But the possibility of getting breast cancer varies all over the world. In Nigeria, because we don’t have good statistics, we can’t tell of the exact percentage of people with breast cancer, but based on the number of people that comes to the clinic, breast cancer is becoming more common in Nigeria, in fact, we have almost a hundred percent increase since the last decade in breast cancer, whether is due to the fact that people are becoming more aware that there is a treatment for it or that there is actual increase, one can be associated to. I believe that there is actual increase of the incident not only in Nigeria but all over the world, some part of the European countries and America have high rate of breast cancer, the only difference is that less people die from the disease over there than in Nigeria.

Another student of the school, Khanak Soni 12, said: “We are doing this to help people who are getting care in the clinic. We are going to help them to be comfortable during their healing process by donating this to people who have gone through mastectomy. I’ll like to say that people who have breast cancer and are getting treatment are really brave because even though they have cancer, they still stay strong and they continue with their lives and that is why we are here to give our little donation to say we are with them.”

Mastectomy is the removal of one or both breasts, partially or completely. Mastectomy pillows protect the sore from rubbing against the arm.

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