Polaris Bank begins Phase IV breast cancer screening for staff, customers – Polaris Bank has started breast cancer screening for employees and customers to reduce breast cancer in Nigeria.
In Lagos, the Bank’s Group Head, Strategic Brand Management, Nduneche Ezurike, reiterated the Bank’s commitment and partnership to fight breast cancer.
Polaris Bank indicated that raising awareness, screening, advocacy, and support will reduce breast cancer rates nationwide.
The monthly screening, now in its 4th phase, began in April. Female Bank employees and consumers can participate. COPE and the NGO’s Adeniyi Jones, Ikeja, Lagos office host the screening.
Polaris Bank’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) includes healthcare, and Ezurike noted that its partnerships with public-spirited NGOs like Care Organisation Public Enlightenment (COPE), Societal Healthcare Organisation (SHO), and Marcel Ruth Cancer Centre have helped reduce breast cancer in the country.
The Polaris spokesman added: “In partnership with the aforementioned NGOs, we have covered five key milestones, namely awareness, advocacy, capacity-building, prevention, and treatment in an ongoing effort to reverse the negative impact and trend of the scourge and other related health complications.
“We have screened over 22,000 women, including female Bank employees through our prevention programme, donated three ultra-modern breast cancer screening machines to enhance quality diagnosis and clinical practises, sponsored the treatment of over 30 indigent cancer patients, and organized/Partnered on a 10-km/6-km walk with over 3,100 participants to draw public attention to the breast cancer scourge.”
COPE President Ebunola Anozie thanked Polaris Bank for its support, compassion, and encouragement over the past 20 years.
We struggled to garner women’s backing. Our women filled their bras with handkerchiefs and tissues. Polaris Bank’s fast support is appreciated. “They donated prostheses that improved our breast cancer survivors’ lives,” Anozie remarked.
Polaris Bank has various programmes to help women in the country. In conjunction with SHO, it held a three-day intensive capacity-building course in Northern Nigeria on life-saving techniques for 50 community midwives and health extension workers randomly recruited from 80 percent public and 20 percent private hospitals in Kano State in 2021.
Polaris Bank also organised a conference in Kano with Sisters-Keepers Initiative, a northern-based NGO and women-focused group, to discuss child neglect, physical abuse, domestic violence, illiteracy, street begging, and child labour.
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