It is estimated that about 16,000 cases of cancer occur yearly in Ghana but due to compounding factors most cancer diagnosis was mostly at the advanced or terminal stages, Dr Verna Vanderpuije, a Radiation and Oncology Consultant has said.

Even though curative treatment was not indicated in these circumstances, maintenance of quality life was of paramount importance, she said at Palliative Care Training Workshop in Accra, on Monday.

The five-day workshop attracted 50 participants, including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, social workers and clinical psychologist from the three teaching Hospitals and three regional hospital namely the Central, Sunyani and Ridge regional Hospital.

It is being sponsored by the Africa Oxford Cancer foundation (AFrOX), UK, the Ghana Health Service, the American Cancer Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO and the African Palliative Care Society (APCA).

Participants at the workshop would have the opportunity to interact with specialist from various countries with established palliative care programmes to equip them with skills, to enable them to start effective palliative care and work in multidisciplinary teams.

Palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual.

Palliative care provides relief from pain and other distressing symptoms; affirms life and regards dying as a normal process; intends neither to hasten or postpone death; offers a support system to help patients live as actively as possible until death and offers a support system to help the family cope during the patient’s illness and in their own bereavement.

According to Dr Lorna Renner, Head of Pediatric Oncology Unit of Korle Bu Hospital, palliative care was not an art mastered by many and requires some extra training to enable recognition and management of symptoms including the spiritual and psychosocial.

She noted that palliative care was required for all patients suffering from life threatening illness including a wide spectrum of illness and not only cancers.

Professor Afua Hesse, Director of Medical Affairs of the Korle Bu Hospital admitted that though palliative care was an issue in clinical care, it was lacking health care and welcomed the imitative and commended the organiser and sponsors for taking it.

Vanita Sharma, AFrOX Head of Programmes, said the training was a back up for a similar one held last year but noted that this one would be more in-depth, interactive and very practical workshop with focus on the six health institution chosen for the training.

Dr Billy Bosu, Programme Manager for Non Communicable Diseases, who opened the workshop, said it has been difficult to estimate the prevalence rate of cancers because the Cancer Registry is not functioning as expected.

According to him, attempts have been made to use mortality and morbidity rates to determine cancer prevalence in the country, but was essentially limited to the two major teaching hospitals, Korle Bu and Komfo Anokye, which only held data on cancers diagnosed in the departments and do not have an overall national picture.

He said there was the need for better and reliable data and noted that the Ghana Health Service and some development partners had developed education material and had also put in a policy which would be formalized at a consultative meeting in July.

The National Cancer Registry currently, is still rudimentary, with weak human and technical capacity, as well as logistical constraints, which hinder its operation.

This notwithstanding, there is the need for Ghana to have dedicated resources control activities in the country and a population based cancer registry that would produce a more accurate picture of the cancer burden in Ghana.**