Minister for Education, Heritage and Arts, Hon. Rosy Akbar intends to include cancer into the Fijian school curriculum’s Family Life Education (FLE).
“Currently we are so prescriptive in our curriculum services in Fiji because we are preparing children for exams,” she said at the Continuing Medical Education Program in “Win Against Cancer” hosted in Nadi today.
“But we do have Family Life currently within our school systems and I intend to use that to ensure that we include awareness on any form of cancer and on all forms of diseases. And these little children can actually be our mouth pieces. They’re the ones who can take the information back home.”
Organized by MIOT International in Chennai, India with the Nadi Cancer Conclave, the event gathers both local and international eminent medical experts to share knowledge on the best possible solutions for cancer treatment.
Minister Akbar said children would understand the diseases, especially if their own parents were patients, and it would help children be more proactive in identifying forms of cancers and urging medical treatment and family support.
“Children at a very young age must be made to understand what’s happening around them,” she added, and noted that with the current multitude of diseases being faced, cancers and non-communicable-diseases (NCDs) had created a double burden.
Minister Akbar said many cancer patients were still seeking medical treatment at extremely late stages and that information about the different cancers need to be well understood by grassroots Fijians.
The Ministry of Health works directly with community health workers who have for the first time, received a budgetary provision by the Fijian Government, under the 2018-2019 National Budget.