Breast cancer taking toll in Westmoreland
Technology, equipment lacking, says doctor
Published:Saturday | October 18, 2025 | 12:09 AM
Western Bureau:
Westmoreland has one of the highest incidences of breast cancer in Jamaica and doctors say that’s only part of the crisis.
“We have one of the highest incidence of breast cancer in the island,” said Dr Lincoln Cox, general surgeon at the Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital and director of medicine for the Misty Blue Cancer Care Foundation.
“When we look at earlier presentations on germline mutations of breast cancer in Jamaica, we realise that we have a high incidence of breast cancer amongst black people in this western region of the world.”
Speaking to The Gleaner at the Faith Gifford Breast Cancer Symposium at Sandals, Whitehouse on Thursday, he noted that the hospital does modified radical mastectomies on patients as young as teens annually, but many more patients arrive too late for surgery.
“Those patients who would have presented late and cannot undergo surgery would have perhaps gone to chemotherapy,” Cox explained. “But because of their advanced state of disease, they would have passed on during the time. They wouldn’t have a chance of cure because of the late presentation.”
When The Gleaner asked about the state of diagnostic tools in the parish, Cox didn’t mince his words.
“Technology, equipment? Oh, I think we’re woefully lacking,” he said. “At the Savanna-la-Mar Hospital, we do surgery, we operate there. However, before we get to surgery, there’s a lot of diagnostic procedures that the patient would have to go through.”
Continuing, he listed the missing essentials.
“Most patients are going to need, for example, a mammogram, or an ultrasound, or a CT scan, or we have a new CT of the breast, or MRIs of the breast. Apart from a simple X-ray, which doesn’t help us with the breast cancer diagnosis, we don’t have any of those facilities.
“We can do the surgeries, but in terms of preliminary investigations and staging the patients, we don’t have the facility.”
The result, he said, is that many women are forced to travel as far as Montego Bay for imaging tests, often at their own expense.
“Those radiological investigations are hard sometimes in Montego Bay. And it’s a challenge for patients who live far in the country. They have to travel to Montego Bay to get those done,” he said.
Such barriers, he explained, contribute to Jamaica’s high mortality rate.
“It would be of significant benefit to the patients if we had those investigations done at the hospital,” he said.
SUPPORT
Psychological support is just as critical, said Walter Dunbar, a psychologist with the Jamaica Psychological Society for the Western Region.
“While we are speaking specifically to breast cancer, it deals with practically all types of ailments. You go through anger, fear, anxiety, guilt. And then when you finally come to terms with it, you realise that this is something that you will have to live with.”
He stressed that psychologists don’t tell patients what to do, but guide them to find their own answers.
“We guide persons to accept, process, and adapt to the new situation that they are going through,” Dunbar said. “Whatever a person is going through, you cannot force them through it. You allow the person to go through what they are going through because they need to now recognise and realise that this is what it is.”
Dunbar also highlighted the importance of support for men.
“We may say that men are the harder gender to get through to, but men are very practical,” he said. “You have to show the practicality. How will this make my life better? Once you show a man that, he will buy into it and give it a try.”
He also added that when couples are involved, judging each other must be avoided.
“We have to ensure that if it’s a couple’s thing, one doesn’t lay it out harder than the other. What I may think is a problem, you may not think is a problem. So we have to have a balance so we can assist the process where everyone is concerned.”
Meanwhile, Dr Everton McIntosh, senior medical officer at the Mandeville Hospital, said prevention and early screening are the best weapons.
“Avoid smoking and alcohol consumption,” he advised. “If you are in a family that has breast cancer, you are strongly advised to go and get genetic testing.”
He added that breast self-examinations and regular mammograms are key.
“Once you are a woman in a reproductive age group, it’s very important that you practise breast testing every month,” he said. “If you find anything suspicious, go to the doctor.”
McIntosh warned that more young women are being diagnosed with aggressive cancers.
“We are seeing persons as young as 13 or 14 years old presenting with breast lumps,” he said. “So, in younger persons, the cancer tends to be more aggressive. That means, when it’s diagnosed, a lot of times it’s too late.”
To prevent patients from presenting late, Cox said, “The most important thing would be to educate the community about breast cancer, the myths and the fear associated with it.
“From a policy point of view, the ministry can help with the health education and promotion when it comes to knowledge and information about breast cancer.”
Until that changes, doctors and patients in Westmoreland will continue to be at odds.