Friday, 31st October, 2025
Hon Comfort Doyoe Cudjoe
Ada
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity. I rise on behalf of the Women Caucus of Parliament to make this Statement as part of activities marking the global observance of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, demonstratively known as the ‘pink month’.
Mr Speaker, this annual observance provides us an opportunity to draw national attention to one of the most pressing health concerns affecting women in Ghana and across the world, breast cancer. According to the Breast Society of Ghana, breast cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related death among women in Ghana, and the majority of cases are unfortunately diagnosed at advanced stage, when treatment becomes more complex and outcomes less favourable.
The Breast Society of Ghana, inaugurated in 2018, continues to play an instrumental role in promoting coordinated and excellent breast care in the country. The society’s message is clear and consistent: early detection saves lives. This truth, Mr Speaker, cannot be overemphasised.
Mr Speaker, the Women Caucus of Parliament join hands with the Breast Society of Ghana and all advocacy partners to intensify awareness on the need for regular breast self-examination, clinical screening and early presentation at health facilities whenever changes are noticed. Our calls go to every woman, mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, colleagues and indeed to every man to encourage and support the women in their lives to seek screening and timely care. The Caucus also recognises that breast cancer awareness is not only a health issue, it is a social and developmental concern that demands national attention and collective responsibility. When a woman battles breast cancer, an entire family, workplace and community are affected.
Every year, the parliamentary service led by Mr Speaker organises breast cancer screening for all MPs and parliamentary staff. In this regard, the Women Caucus of Parliament pledges its full support to the National Awareness Campaign. The Caucus will continue to advocate for improved access to screening, diagnosis and treatment services across the country, with special attention to rural and underserved areas. In addition, the Caucus is committed to helping destigmatise breast cancer by addressing the myths, fear and cultural barriers that often discourage women from seeking early medical attention.
Above all, the Women Caucus will continue to champion the voices of survivors, whose experiences and testimonies remind us that there is life, hope and strength beyond breast cancer. The team adopted by the Breast Society of Ghana for this year’s Awareness Campaign, Living Beyond Breast Cancer, Together We Can, resonates strongly with our national agenda for inclusion, compassion and resilience.
Indeed, together we make a difference by promoting education, by supporting survivors and by ensuring that no woman faces breast cancer alone or in silence. The Women Caucus is therefore calling on all stakeholders, health professionals, policymakers, development partners, civil society and the media to join this national cause. Together, let us build a Ghana where every woman has access to early screening, quality treatment and post-care support. Allow me to use this platform to salute the dedicated health workers, advocates, volunteers and survivors who continue to inspire hope across the nation. We also thank our development partners and all Members of Parliament who support this noble cause through awareness creation and their constituency-based initiatives.
May the Almighty God bless every woman and man working towards a breast cancerfree Ghana. May He strengthen those battling the disease, comfort those who have lost loved ones and guide us all. We continue to serve our nation with compassion, diligence and unity of purpose.
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity.
Hon Laadi Ayii Ayamba
Pusiga
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity for me to add my comments to the Statement ably made by our Leader, Ms Comfort Doyoe Cudjoe.
Mr Speaker, the theme for this year is “living beyond breast cancer and together we can”. The Pink Month, which signifies a month in which we talk mostly about breast cancer, is here with us again. It is quite disheartening and disturbing that this problem is affecting many women, especially in the villages. Mr Speaker, it is very important that we pay heed to breast cancer and ensure that awareness creation goes down to the very last villages, cottages and hamlets of this country. Mr Speaker, I am saying this because many women are not aware of what breast cancer is.
Unfortunately, the breast of every woman contains some kind of lump, and some of us mistake it, especially elderly women. To examine is one of the places where most women need to be educated. I saw my Sister, Prof Ayensu-Danquah, talking about it on television. I saw some women who also came up and were demonstrating how to detect lumps. But it is not easy. Many people do not understand. They do not even see why they should do that. I overheard us even advising that husbands or men should help their wives to detect these lumps. Many have been laughing at this. This is not a laughing situation. It is a very big problem; we need one another to solve the problem. Some men think that it is just for fun and wonder how to detect that. Their support is actually needed. We should not make this a talk just in the Chamber, but let us take it back to our constituencies.
Mr Speaker, I am happy that you said this Statement is not supposed to be commented on by only women; the men here equally have wives, sisters, mothers and aunties. The awareness needs to be created so we know that there is a problem looming there, in our villages. Mr Speaker, one would see some women with some kind of prickles on their nipples. When you try to advise them, they will tell you they have been given some concoction to boil and drink every morning. Then eventually, the breast starts shrinking, becomes hard, before they realise, it is too late.
Mr Speaker, I wish to plead with the Ministry of Health to make it one of its priorities by making the nurses who travel to the villages educate and encourage the women and if possible, this should be done regularly in all our Community Health Planning and Services (CHPS) compounds, especially because these are the health facilities that we have in the villages. If we do that, it will go a long way to help us. I can assure that it is the lack of education and ignorance that causes this problem. We are aware that when it is detected early—But how will we detect it early when we do not know that we are supposed to check ourselves? One does not even know that there is a problem. I was surprised when I heard that we can even detect it in our armpits.
Mr Speaker, I was surprised. I have never tried looking for any lump in my armpit because I have never thought breast cancer could be something that would be a lump in my armpit. If, at my level, I am hearing this for the first time, what about a villager in Pusiga who has never even thought that there is anything called breast cancer? So, Mr Speaker, for your interest and support for women, I wish to plead that you help us ensure that every MP in this House takes up an activity. Even if they have already done it, extend it, ensure our local radio stations continue to sing the anthem of the need for women to check their breasts for lumps, and any suspicion should be reported.
Mr Speaker, because there is not much time, I wish to say a very big thank you for giving us this opportunity, although we are all yearning to go, and to thank my Colleague women and all other MPs for listening to me.
Hon Thomas Winsum Anabah
Garu
Mr Speaker, thank you very much, for the opportunity to contribute to this presentation by our Leader on Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Let me first of all commend you for your involvement in this Breast Cancer Awareness Month by allowing Parliament to use the premises to advocate on breast cancer awareness, and also thank the Women Caucus for the good job done. Just to add that next time, I would encourage them to do it outside Accra, possibly in Garu, to bring more awareness to the people there, because they do not have a medium of communication like we have here to listen to the radio and the rest. So going there would actually shed more light on it.
What I want to add, Mr Speaker, is that we are talking about giving a full month to create awareness about the first restaurant of everybody on earth; that is where we all go to eat our first food when we are born. So it is very important that we dedicate time to speaking about it. One thing is that people believe that breast cancer is only for women. Let me advise our men here that we have one to two per cent of men in the world who can develop breast cancer. So they should not only be looking at checking or educating their wives, but also check themselves because delay in diagnosing it, as they said, would cause irreversible damage to the breast, and they may lose their lives because of that.
Lack of awareness is something that would also cause one to develop the sickness and poor treatment. But the good news is that with the Mahama Cares coming, some of these cancers are going to be managed properly, and with this awareness we are creating, people will get to check themselves, go for their mammograms when they are placed in all the regional hospitals for early diagnosis and go for the right treatment to curb mortalities. We are told that about 450 women die yearly in Ghana as a result of breast cancer because of a lack of diagnosis and a lack of awareness.
Thanks to God, MahamaCares is coming. Definitely with that, we would be able to diagnose and treat them early. What we need to do is to give more resources to our public and community health nurses, train them on how to diagnose them early and also get them portable ultrasounds from the MahamaCares to ensure that they are able to scan the breast and the armpits. That way, the chemotherapy, radiotherapy and the surgery will reduce the mortalities to zero.
To this end, I would say, thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this important, thematic area, talking about the first restaurant of everybody on earth.
Hon Fred Kyei Asamoah
Offinso North
Mr Speaker, we would like to appreciate the maker of the Statement on behalf of the Women's Caucus as we create more awareness on breast cancer.
I would also like to appreciate you, Mr Speaker, and the Parliamentary Service. The entire month, I have seen that the staff here have been wearing pink dresses throughout and a lot of activities to create more awareness. As we say, prevention is always better than cure. With breast cancer, as with any other type of cancer, it can lead to death. And one will want to prevent it as much as possible before one gets into treatment.
So, Mr Speaker, in other jurisdictions, they tend to make it compulsory as part of their primary health care to ensure that all women from the age of 40 go for a check-up, I mean a mammogram. Sometimes, it is expensive, so in our part of the world, it might be very difficult to afford. But normal physical examination by the woman herself or men, helping their wives to check and to examine their breasts for any kind of unusual physical appearance or lumps, is something that we want to encourage. Like one of our Members said, the breast is something that has fed almost everybody in the world, and all of us are alive because of a woman. We want to keep them alive long enough to be able to continue to bless us.
Mr Speaker, I would like us not only to create awareness for just one month of the year but to ensure that we put in some activities that will be done year-round, because when one gets breast cancer and is even treated, sometimes there are relapses that could lead to other kinds of cancers as well. We want to encourage ourselves, especially as representatives of the people, to put in programmes within our various constituencies and organisations, to make sure that we take the country along to ensure that we prevent it as much as possible.
When we do not prevent it, and it gets into treatment, it becomes more expensive. If we can commit more funds into prevention, it is something that will help us as a country. Thank you.
Hon Lydia Lamisi Akanvariba
Tempane
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to contribute to this all-important Statement made by our able Leader.
I think we have spoken so much about this, but there is one aspect that we need to look at critically. Most of the people get to a stage where surgery and other treatments become difficult because of superstition and local treatments. That is why we need to emphasise the awareness of breast cancer. For example, I met a certain woman who had breast cancer. It started as a lump; just a small lump on her breast. When she went back home, after the doctor had said they had wanted to excise it, they told her no, and that if it is removed, she would die.
Eventually, the woman died. It is because of the superstition that when you have a boil, or when you have something like a boil in your body, and you go to the hospital, they inject you, or give you some kind of treatment, you are likely to die. But at the end of the day, if you do not treat it, you will die anyway. We need to let that awareness be on our lips all the time. If we are only using one month of the whole year, what about the rest of the 11 months that are remaining? We need to continue this education.
Again, local treatment, sometimes they will say just go for the local treatment and when they put some herbs on it, it will cure by itself. However, cancer has nothing to do with local treatment. You put all the herbs on it, and it will continue to grow. At the end of the day, it will kill you. So, why do we not make sure that the awareness or the education goes down, that when a person has a lump, it is better they remove it than for them to use local treatment.
Let us also emphasise the fact that the men have to help us. Men and husbands, please kindly help us. It is something that you are with a woman for the rest of your life. It is better you help her to examine her breast every month, so that it will help you the man detect it early so that she will survive for you; otherwise, she will end up dying, and you do not have a wife, or your children do not have a mother.
Please, let men do their bit by helping our women to examine the breast, notice any lump in the breast, and then at the end of the day, they will be able to support their mothers and sisters to get early detection and early treatment. Probably, early support will help us to live longer.
Thank you very much. I am most grateful.
Hon Titus Kofi Beyuo
Lambussie
Mr Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to contribute to the Statement, and let me thank the Women Caucus for taking this up.
I want to put on record that data suggests that breast cancers in Ghana occur at a relatively younger age compared to the rest of the world, and they are also more aggressive than other parts of the world. This means that we have to ensure that we do early diagnosis to minimise the risk associated with it. In this light, I want to call on the Ministry of Health to ensure equitable distribution of mammograms equipment across the country. Mammography services are not available from Kumasi and beyond. We can find them in Accra and Kumasi. From Techiman and beyond, we will not get one in the public hospitals, which means that women in the upper regions of this country do not have access to screening, and so we need to ensure equitable distribution.
I also want to commend the Ministry of Health and its partners, especially the corporate world, and I want to make particular mention of Pfizer. There is a particular medication that is so helpful to women with breast cancer, called Palbociclib. This is a targeted treatment, and with the collaboration of the Ministry, they have reduced the price of this drug from about GH₵36,000 per month to GH₵2,000. It has a very helpful medication. We commend them and ask the National Health Insurance Authority to see if with this reduction, they can incorporate this into their benefit package, so that a lot of women can benefit from this medication.
Finally, I would want to encourage that we reduce stigma, especially against women who have had mastectomy. It is the reason a lot of women resist mastectomy, that is surgery to remove their breast, even when it is life-saving. I will call on men to render support to our mothers, wives, and sisters, if they need to undergo such urgent procedures.
In conclusion, Mr Speaker, the free primary health care brings a lot of hope, and when this policy is launched, we should all latch onto it, because it will promote screening by community health workers at their homes, in the lorry stations; we will have clinics at all these places. It is not for sick people. Anybody can walk in and be screened for noncommunicable diseases, including cancers, and breast cancer is certainly one of them. So it is one of the lifesaving policies that H.E. John Dramani Mahama intends to implement. When it is implemented, it will improve our disease burden for non-communicable diseases.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to contribute.
Hon Matthew Nyindam
Kpandai
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to contribute to the Statement ably made by the Women Caucus of this House.
The effect of breast cancer cannot be overestimated. If you are a Member of Parliament, and you really tour your constituency all the time, you will get to know that we have lost or we are losing precious women because of breast cancer. The early detection and education in most of our rural communities is lacking. Women really do not want to accept that some kind of pain that they feel might result in breast cancer. The idea is, “no, I need some local treatments”, just like one of our Colleagues said. You could encounter a woman who will not even want to appreciate the advice you are giving her to go to the hospital.
Sometimes, Mr Speaker, it is so bad that they do not even want to open it for people to see. They end up losing their lives. Mr Speaker, I want to ask the Women Caucus to do more work, not just make a Statement. We need to educate our women. They need to come together as a Women Caucus. Tour constituencies, let people appreciate, and educate them that this is breast cancer. I agree with the fact that it is mostly about women, and they always call on us to assist them. But, Mr Speaker, there is a debate out there: who is even the rightful owner of the breast? Mr Speaker, the debate is out there, whether it is the woman, the child or the man. This debate, Mr Speaker, if you look at the Majority Side, the men are debating. It is our responsibility to make sure that we protect the breast. Even when we are weaned off —
Mr Speaker we will get back there again—So the women should not call on us to assist them. It is our responsibility to make sure that the breast is free of breast cancer. Mr Speaker, on a more serious note, let us engage our community health nurses. They are very close to the women and to the community. Early education and detection will help us, to some extent, prevent this breast cancer.
On this note, Mr Speaker, I want to thank you for the opportunity.
Hon Rachel Amma Owusuah
Dormaa East
Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is said that cancer or breast cancer cannot be prevented because the main cause is unknown.
However, when it is detected early, it can be treated than when reported to the hospital at a later stage where the prognosis becomes unfavourable. So, to add my voice to what my Hon Senior Colleagues have already stated, I suggest and appeal to all midwives and the community health nurses to palpate every pregnant woman during antenatal clinic visits. Also, when a woman goes into the labour ward, they do head-to-toe examination during such conditions, and after delivery, they also go to the postnatal clinic.
That one also can be done to detect the condition earlier for treatment. And to our husbands and boyfriends, the sucking of the breast should not be the only interest during the process of love making. I appeal to them also to touch the breast, feel and palpate for any abnormalities. So that in case of any abnormalities, they can detect it early and the woman could go for treatment, and this can help save lives and prevent the condition from getting worse.
Thank you, Mr Speaker for the opportunity.
Hon Shirley Kyei
Atwima Nwabiagya South
Thank you, Mr Speaker for the opportunity to comment on the Statement ably made by the leader of the Women’s Caucus.
Mr Speaker, breast cancer is something that we are all at risk of as women. As I learned today, well, I have known in the past, but more light was thrown on it, that men too are at risk of breast cancer. With all of us being susceptible to this, I would say that there is the need for us to get educated.
Mr Speaker, no one gets up and anticipates getting breast cancer. For our women out there, that have gone through this, it is my prayer that we all lend them the support that they need because there is a lot of stigmata associated with this and it makes them coil into their shells and unable to socialise or share their stories. I also know that there are a lot of support groups or resources out there and these support groups are there for us to be able to talk to. So, for our women, we should be able to get out there and get the needed support that we need. We know that symptoms and causes of breast cancer varies. We have talked about swelling in the armpits, thickening of the breast and all that. I pray that as women, we look out for these things. We should be able to check ourselves. It is not just about going to the hospital to get checked out.
We should be able to do our normal checks in the house. We have also asked and implored our men to help us in these checks. So, our men, like Hon Member who contributed to the Statement said, this is their first restaurant and is imperative that they make sure that their first restaurant is in order. I would also like to say that as a country, we should commit more resources to research to be able to know the real causes of breast cancer. I know with your able leadership and with the Ghana Medical Trust Fund, “MahamaCares” we would dedicate more funds to finding out the real causes of breast cancer and giving a prolonged lifespan to our women and our mothers out there.
Thank you very much Mr Speaker for the opportunity.
Hon Abdul Kabiru Tiah Mahama
Walewale
hank you very much Mr Speaker.
I want to also commend the Women’s Caucus of this Parliament for the initiative during this month, “the Pink October month”, and to your good self for supporting the various activities marking the month.
Mr Speaker, the breast is an endangered species. It is such an endangered valuable resource that the rate at which it is depleted with needless loss of lives due to breast cancer is something that should alarm the conscience of this country. Various contributors to that particular Statement have highlighted the scientific, social and economic imperative of the need for us to tackle head-on, this menace of breast cancer.
I think that just like the Hon Member for Kpandai stated, the importance of the breast cannot be overemphasised. It is an established fact that women are only the host of the breast. The utility of the breast serves third parties and people outside the host of this breast. Mr Speaker, the first major beneficiary of this valuable resource is the child. The child grows and if it happens to be a male child, like Hon Jerry Ahmed Shaib, there is a lifelong growth to benefit from the breast again. So, the fight, advocacy and conscious support for the women and men in fighting breast cancer should be of collective interest to all of us. But I also want to note, with an uneasy heart, the reticence of men in supporting women in the fight against breast cancer.
Mr Speaker, why do I say the reticence? I think that as a principle and maybe law, we should consider an implied duty on every married man, to ensure, as part of the duty to the necessity of life, they send their wives for screening at least once every year or once every six months. This conscious effort by way of an implied duty imposed on every married man would help us reduce the reluctance of many women not wanting to be screened.
Mr Speaker, once this is done, and while we are even looking at other Bills, — I read that in this particular House, they are trying to bring the Spousal Property Bill. We should also be reflecting how we can impose, in all the Bills that are coming, a duty on the man to ensure that his wife, who is under his care, is regularly screened. My Colleague, Prof Beyuo also mentioned the issue of Government coming in to support this initiative.
Mr Speaker, the absence of mammography or any of such x-ray equipment for the purpose of screening or checking the breast is something that should not be allowed in the 21st century. For a country that is over 60 years old, we can only get the facilities and accessories for assessing or examining the breast in Accra or in the southern part of the country. I know the leadership of Parliament and the Rt Hon Speaker will not let the issue as raised by my Colleague go to sleep.
The Minister for Finance would bring the Budget and we have the responsibility of approving the Budget. Let us find out in the Budget whether the Minister for Finance has made adequate provisions at least for every regional capital to have mammography services being rendered for the people of Ghana, so that every corner of the country at least will be safe from the needless loss of lives.
Mr Speaker, as a young boy, I grew up also learning about a popular advocacy which I did not hear much of this year. It is “Free the Apples”. I do not know whether it is still associated with breast cancer awareness. The women also have the responsibility not to imprison the breast. They have the responsibility to be conscious that imprisoning the breast is also a risk factor— Imprisoning the breast means wearing brassieres so tight that there is even no space for the breast to breathe—It is a risk factor. I think that—I am not a witchdoctor—
Mr Speaker, with these few words, I want to commend the Leader of the Caucus for this brilliant Statement and to say that the Rt Hon Speaker should check the Budget, whether there are adequate provisions made for this issue as part of his legacies for this particular House.
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.
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