Rotary Club of Downtown Kingston activates $7m plan to tackle prostate cancer

With this year’s observance of Prostate Cancer Awareness Month just days away, the Rotary Club of Downtown Kingston is seeking to raise $7 million to sponsor prostate cancer tests and treatment for men who cannot afford them.

Prostate cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in Jamaica among men, and the island has one of the highest mortality rates for the illness in the Caribbean.

There were 1,561 new cases of prostate cancer in Jamaica in 2020. The disease is preventable and screening is available through digital rectal examination by clinicians as well as the prostate specific antigen (PSA) blood test.

Rotary Club of Downtown Kingston President Paul Brissett said the club decided to take on the ambitious cancer awareness campaign to cover its goodwill track for two years through free screening and health fairs.

“We are, this year, looking at implementing a prostate cancer screening and education programme across the country,” Brissett said at a recent church service to launch the club’s outreach activities for the 2024-25 year.

“We certainly want funding for the PSA tests. Those tests come at a cost, and when we have done our surveys and our research, we found that we have two major things to hurdle: the cost of the test and volunteer doctors, so those we definitely need assistance with,” he said.

CAMPAIGN GOAL

In a follow-up interview on Tuesday, Brissett told The Gleaner that the overall goal is to help families keep their men alive, especially given that treatment is available and longer lives can be had, but early detection and intervention is key.

“We all know about prostate cancer, but we know it does not get the kind of [attention] that it deserves and requires, so big on our list of priorities is the education and the destigmatising of, especially, the screening process. Prostate cancer affects men, and these are fathers, uncles, brothers, cousins, friends,” Brissett said.

“We see what’s happening in our communities today, [and] without strong and capable men, we are going to have problems. This thing does not just affect a man. It affects a family. It affects a community. They get lost because they don’t go and get tested,” he said.

Already, he said media personality Jennifer ‘Jenny Jenny’ Small has committed to the cause and he is urging more high-profile individuals to join efforts to spread the message.

“We want women. We need women who are influential because when a man contracts this disease, by the time it is detected and it is far gone, what happens? That family gets destroyed. Women lose their fathers, their husbands, their brothers,” Brissett reasoned.

Persons interested in donating to the cause can call 876-276-7232 or 876-477-1139.

ainsworth.morris@gleanerjm.com