Primary Health Care Corporation’s main goal is concerned with providing the best preventive and curative health services to the population. The Breast and Bowel screening program is one of the most important preventive services in the Corporation, as the program is concerned with enriching awareness about the importance of screening and its role in life saving. The program continues to develop and update the services to ensure highest level of quality for the public. From this standpoint, the program reactivated one of the services and announced the successful conclusion of the national breast cancer awareness campaign.

Since its launch during the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a significant engagement towards Bowel cancer screening home delivery service for screening participants and it has had an incredible effect on the number of follow ups and screening assessments. In order to help the screening program to reach more people in the community, home delivery service of the bowel cancer screening has been reactivated via QPost.

The home delivery service is available for free, through which participants will be able to have a telephone consultation and then the bowel screening kit will be sent to their address via QPost.  It will be available for all the targeted participants, in particular those who have previously completed their screenings with the program either once or more, patients who are unable to physically attend due to far distance or special needs as well as the elderly. 

Moving on, last month PHCC delivered the Breast Cancer awareness campaign under the slogan “Symptom free is not disease free - Screen to be sure!” The slogan was chosen to emphasize the importance of getting the routine screening even if you do not have any symptoms, as with any disease there is potential presence without any symptoms.  

Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a yearly celebration held worldwide in October. The purpose of it is to raise awareness about breast cancer and the signs and symptoms associated with it, as when spotted earlier it is easily treatable, and patients can continue to live a healthy life. Research has also shown that breast cancer is one of the most common cancers among women, therefore the significance of this campaign is extremely heightened. 

Dr. Shaikha Abu Shaikha, Director of the screening programs at PHCC said: “This year we have successfully experienced a high level of engagement from our communities and the partnership across health sectors has been the key to ensuring that we reach our target audience.”
 
One key aspect of the national breast and bowel cancer screening program is raising public awareness through such campaigns. Breast Cancer Awareness campaign aims to educate the public on the various signs and symptoms of breast cancer. Whilst doing so, the public are learning the significance of routinely screening, and what are the steps to be taken to access screening.

The month-long comprehensive campaign included, print, social media efforts, public engagement awareness activities including lectures and activation health awareness booths. 
 
Doha Festival City was one of the major supporters of October campaign where we had awareness booths from 13-15 and 20-22 October as well as in-mall advertisement.  Health awareness Booths were also present at 9 different locations within PHCC HQ building, Al Wajbah, Umm Slal, Mesaimeer, Rawdat Al Khail, Leabaib, Wakra, Muaither, and  Al Daayen Health centers. Our specialists at the booth educated visitors on the importance of breast cancer screening, and registered the ladies in the target population to be called for the screening. 

Furthermore, awareness for the campaign was also pushed by lectures about breast cancer and the importance of screening. There was a total of 12 awareness lectures presented to the staff working at the companies & school, including, Al Khansaa Library (Ministry of Culture), Ministry of Finance, QSur, Voltaire School, Wyndham Hotel West Bay, Ghoson Spa, Zekrit Primary School, AlKhaleej AlArabi kindergarten, Khalifa Kindergarten for boys, Shell - Barwa Compound, Elite Medical Center, and Etqan Global Academy. PHCC also had collaboration with social media influencers to remind women about the importance of regular screening and had a coverage of one of our cancer screening suites in PHCC health center.

As part of their efforts to engage the public, the PHCC team also distributed giveaways at screening-dedicated at the screening suites. The campaign was also supported by Qatar Energy, WISH walkathon and several schools which distributed giveaways and the health education flyers.

Overall, as a result of the October campaign Screen for Life – Breast & Bowel screening Program registered a total of 1305 women who did their mammograms and 1966 other women scheduled to do their screening. 

“It is vital that we always remember that screening saves lives, therefore we must always ensure that we are up to date with our screening to detect the presence of disease at an early stage. When detected at early stages, which will be through the screening, breast cancer survival rate will reach up to 98%” said Dr. Shaikha Abu Shaikha.

Dr. Shaikha continued “As a reminder, if you are between the age of 45 to 69, you don’t have any symptoms related to breast cancer, didn’t do your mammogram in the past 3 month, with a valid QID and health card please contact our call center 8001112 to book your appointment.” 

There are 4 different suites located at different health centers across Qatar, these are, Leabaib, Rawdat Al khail, Muaither, and Al-Wakra health centers and are all fully equipped with the highest technology mammograms and very well-trained clinical staff.

For more information, please contact the ‘Screen for Life’ call center on 800 1112 or visit the website https://screenforlife.phcc.qa/