Health ministry pushes prostate cancer screenings with Boss Man campaign

While the statement ‘15 seconds of discomfort could save a man a lifetime of pain’ continues to ring true in reference to the importance of prostate cancer screening, one in eight Jamaican men will be diagnosed with the disease.

Jamaica has the highest incidence of prostate cancer in the world, with an age-standardised rate of 304 per 100,000 per year.

Last year alone, nearly 1,000 men died from the disease.

That is the startling figure from the Jamaica Cancer Society, which is hoping to tackle the matter frontally with its new Boss Man Campaign, which seeks to encourage men to get screened.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in Jamaica and is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths. According to the Global Cancer Observatory, for 2018, Jamaica was reported as having 1,309 new prostate cancer cases, which represented 17.8 per cent of all cancers locally.

Screening methods, however, remain highly controversial and are believed to be the main reason why Jamaican men would rather risk developing the disease than to have the test done.

Guardian Life has donated $2.4 million towards the campaign, which the group’s president, Eric Hosin, sees as a very useful and practical approach to taking the message to all Jamaican men.

“From Minister [Christopher] Tufton began telling me about this campaign, I knew it will be a great initiative. It is one that’s very well needed. Prostate cancer is the number-one cause of death among cancers in men.

“It is a very serious thing,” he said, adding that it was not “so macho to hide and run until they have to bury us and then we leave behind family and loved ones that are going to suffer some more because you were, in many cases, the breadwinner”.

Tufton said that a greater focus would be placed on prevention of diseases such as prostate cancer as part of the major thrust of the health ministry’s public health agenda.

“I think there is no debating that we are threatened as a people based on a range of healthcare ailments that we have,” stated Tufton.

The campaign, which is also being supported by the Guardsman Group, will see the message being taken around the country at health fairs as a means of allowing men to access screening services and to garner important information about the disease. A media campaign is also planned.

Prostate cancer is generally a slow-growing disease and many men with the disease will die of causes other than prostate cancer. However, some younger men who get the disease have a more aggressive type.

Research indicates that there are no clear causes. However, the risk of developing prostate cancer increases with age.

paul.clarke@gleanerjm.com