I'm delighted to report that the Race for Life team have agreed on the project we are going to support with the funds you helped us raise this year. Our objective was simple, we want to do something that will "make a positive difference"
Soon after we had the idea to stage the Fethiye Race for Life, we met with the head of oncology at the Devlet state hospital and it was at this meeting that we learned that some of the relatively simple and potentially life saving procedures like endoscopy and colonoscopy were not available locally unless you could afford to go privately. This meant that a number of people who could not afford to even make the trip to Antalya, Izmir or Istanbul simply hoped and prayed that things would get better, sadly for many, it didn't.
The great news is that they have recently introduced both of these procedures at the hospital and employed two extra cancer doctors, one of who is a specialist in 'oscopy' procedure and diagnosis. Now the problem is that although they have a state of the art Fuji medical unit, they only have one scope/probe which takes up to 30 minutes to sterilise and prepare after each patient. The doctors have reported that the addition of a second scope would improve patient volumes by at least 30% and probably more, as you can imagine, they are really swamped with patients who need this procedure as its not only new diagnosis but also a large backlog of patients coming forward.
So, we have decided to buy this badly needed new equipment, there are two versions available, a Standard Definition (SD) unit, which they have now and a High Definition (HD) version which gives a better picture and so a more accurate diagnosis.
We have the funds to purcase the SD probe but are a couple of thousand lira short for the HD version which we would like to supply. We are going to negotiate the price with Fuji medical to see if we can come to an agreement on the price but in either event we will make a huge difference and hopefully save or extend lives in our area.
We will of course keep you posted.
Cancer, We're coming to get you.