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Breast Cancer Awareness Month - The Guest Editors are coming tomorrow

Published:Wednesday | September 27, 2017 | 12:00 AM
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Lionel Rookwood
Rowena 'Christene' King (left) and Yulit Gordon, two of our guest editors, examine the plans before giving their final nod of approval to the special edition of tomorrow's Gleaner observing Breast Cancer Awareness Month, on which they had been working along with fellow guest editors Rev Ronald Thwaites and Dr Jennifer Mamby Alexander.
Lionel Rookwood
Thwaites
Shorn Hector
Dr Jennifer Mamby Alexander
Gladstone Taylor
Yulit Gordon
Ian Allen
Rowena 'Christene' King.
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There are more than a million new cases of breast cancer each year, according to the World Health Organisation, and every 45 minutes, a woman dies from this dreadful disease.

Closer home, the Jamaica Cancer Society (JCS) says one in every 21 women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime.

This knowledge has been the fillip for The Gleaner's decision to vary the way we observe Breast Cancer Awareness Month for 2017. Among the activities that we have planned for October is our special publication for which we have invited four knowledgeable Jamaicans to be our Guest Editors.

They are all professionals, three of them are breast cancer survivors and the fourth heads this non-profit, non-governmental organisation whose mission is to defeat cancer in all its forms, the JCS.

On Pages A1 and A2 and others inside of tomorrow's Gleaner you will be utterly confounded by costs that cancer patients must pay for medication and service, that are as deadly as the cancer itself. Death is a possibility for many without health insurance.

You'll be taken, virtually, through their experiences - see the fight, the fall, the fortitude ... See the issues that they face, for example, the long wait to get test results, and see the call to action; for policies that will give more people a chance to live and families an opportunity to enjoy each other for a while longer.

Our Guest Editors were thorough as they supervised reporters assigned to the stories - as thorough as they are passionate about breast cancer. Tomorrow's edition of The Gleaner is one you will want to keep.