World Child Cancer- the Financial Times Seasonal Appeal

World Child Cancer (WCC) has been chosen as the Financial Times charity for their Seasonal Appeal.

Please consider supporting World Child Cancer this holiday season as the Financial Times will match all donations for the next few weeks.

Check out this video which explains the work of WCC.  

http://blogs.ft.com/the-world/2013/11/introducing-world-child-cancer/

I am working with WCC in Bangladesh, providing teaching and expertise about treating children with cancer, specifically treating their pain and providing palliative care.

This excellent article explains the challenges and suffering faced by children in developing countries with cancer:  I've post the beginning below, the rest is found at the link below.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/f0fdcbd6-617d-11e3-b7f1-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2p1QmbrGw

Cancer patients suffer from poor access to palliative care

From her office at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, Lorna Renner took a call this month from the parents of a child she had diagnosed with untreatable cancer. They had returned to a clinic nearer home for the last few weeks of her life.

“I could hear the child crying in pain on the phone on the ward because they had not got any painkillers there,” she said on the phone from Ghana. “I had given them some morphine at discharge, but the other hospital had run out of supplies.”

Given the limited number of hospital beds, there is a push for children with cancer to return either to local clinics or to their families. But a shortage of drugs and expertise could mean they face a double tragedy: not only do they have no chance of a cure but they will also die in pain.