Pink - the colour of hope for uninsured women

Abstract

In an unprecedented breast cancer busting campaign aimed at the medically uninsured, the NGO PinkDrive, tertiary hospitals and clinics in three provinces, plus MediClinic, are temporarily eliminating public sector mammography backlogs, potentially saving thousands of lives.
The typically slow screening of women by overloaded and often understaffed public sector breast clinics does little to increase the cancer detection rate of one in 26 women daily, definitely not improving on the current ratio of one in seven actually dying of the disease. Most women without medical cover present late, often after repeated shunning by busy screening facilities. Far too many women are then diagnosed at an advanced stage of the disease, when little can be done. There are no known studies estimating the ensuing fatalities, but Noelene Kotschan, founder and director of PinkDrive, believes they are alarmingly high.