There are many stories from nearly two decades of community-based cervical cancer screening. But one story stands out for its profound and lasting impact it’s had on me.
In 2008/2009, I was in Irun Akoko in Ondo State supporting a cervical cancer screening project funded by the National Cancer Institute. Screening was completely free, including treatment for women diagnosed with cervical cancer, up to radical hysterectomy and radiotherapy.
One woman was diagnosed with CIN 2. She was invited several times to return for treatment, but she did not come.
A social worker went to speak with her, but she still did not come. I went to her home personally so that we could close her case. Her husband chased me away and warned me never to return.
About a year later, after completing my residency, I started working at the State Specialist Hospital in Akure, Ondo State.
On my first day, I was walking down the hospital corridor when I saw a woman lying on a mat. I walked past her, and a man accompanying her began calling, “Doctor, doctor,” and running after me.
At first, I thought he could not have been calling me. Then I turned around.
He asked if I remembered him. I didn’t.
He told me he was the man who had chased me away from his home in Irun Akoko when I had come to call his wife for treatment.
The woman lying on the corridor was his wife.
I followed him back to see her. She was in a terrible state. There was no space on the ward, so she was lying in the corridor. Fortunately, a patient was discharged around that time, and she was admitted to a bed.
I examined her and made an impression of at least stage 4A disease.
Unfortunately, she died that night.
That experience left a deep impression on me. It taught me that providing screening and treatment is not always enough. People also need to understand why screening matters, feel able to trust the people providing it, and have the support they need to follow through when something is found.
Even today, people come for screening and, when called back for follow-up, some do not return, despite repeated efforts to reach them.
This is why HopeScan goes beyond screening.
For HopeScan, this story is a reminder that saving lives from cervical cancer requires more than making screening available.
It requires education that addresses myths and misinformation. It requires trusted voices within communities. It requires conversations that acknowledge fear rather than dismissing it. And it requires helping women understand what a screening result means and what they can do next.
Our goal is to help build a pathway in which a woman is not simply screened and given a result, but is supported from awareness and screening through follow-up, navigation, and access to care.
Because an early diagnosis only has the power to save a life if a woman is able—and willing—to take the next step.
Your support can help us build that pathway.
By supporting HopeScan, you can help bring cervical cancer education and screening closer to communities, help dispel the myths and fears that keep women from seeking care, and help connect those who need follow-up with the care they need.
Together, we can help ensure that another woman does not have to reach a hospital corridor before she receives the care that could have changed her story.