BY EMMANUEL ELEBEKE

NIGERIAN women should not wait to see the impact of cancer and other noncommuncable diseases before seeking medical attention.

Making the call in Lagos recently, Publicity Secretary of the NECA’s Network of Entrepreneurial Women, NNEW,Mrs. Mayo Williams at NECA’s Annual Women Empowerment Programme organised in Lagos said by taking the right choices and informed decisions; women could live healthy life and be able to run their businesses well.

Williams who stressed that this year’s meeting focused on health said:“Every year, NNEW chooses a salient topic and today, we are talking about cancer, the symptoms and how to prevent cancer.”

The Secertary who decried low awareness and scarcity of facilities about cancer in the country regretted that many illustrious Nigerians have died of cancer.

She called on government to provide facilities as well as massive enlightenment campaign on the disease in order to save more lives.

“By this gathering, we will be avoiding long victimisation of the disease, huge expense and long hospitalization of people because of cancer. If you are not healthy, you cannot work. You will spend a lot of time and money in the hospital. There are countries largely affected by diseases like HIV and this has greatly affected their economy. Our government should not wait until cancer ravages us”.

On the choice of cancer, Williams said “Cancer remains one of the noncommunicable diseases that is really ravaging the populace right now. It is important to catch it early, not to ignore the warning signs. Colon cancer for instance, can cause spurious diarrhoea”.

She said their mission is to educate the women, so that they can take charge of their own health, make right choices and informed decisions, eat the right diets in order to stay away from the negative consequences of cancer.”

“ NNEW is about empowering women to build generation of successful women. It trains and empowers women on important business plans to uplift their generation and to continue into the future.

“We enable women to know more about business management,training, about business ethics, about best practices, health and safety, record keeping. We also assist them to access funds in order to grow their businesses.”