Why I Signed: Marcel
by Guest
This Summer’s UN Global Health Summit is our chance to make cancer a global priority. Sign on and tell world leaders to fight the global cancer crisis.
Facing a cancer is a huge challenge. It requires several resources and has depth impact in the patient?s life: Emotionally, financially, and socially. Everything will significantly change everyone involved and forever.
It?s harder in emerging countries. Every year around 500,000 Brazilians are diagnosed with cancer. Although Brazil has a good infrastructure to support millions of patients, the best locations are still based in great cities such as Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Also, people are not well informed about caring themselves and have a stigmatized label when think of cancer.
In Brazil, 25 million people are in DE social class living with less than US$ 800.00 per month. Paying for private school or for healthcare is an unaffordable luxury for them. They still have to eat at least three times a day, pay for transportation to arrive at work and support their children – five per family on average. For any health assistance, they must to call on healthcare public system, which pays US$ 6.00 for medical consultancy and US$ 45.00 for a surgery. It?s possible to wonder what kind of service the patient will receive in those places.
It?s already known that cancer is a global crisis. It?s the most costly disease in the world – financially and lives terms. The most effective way to fight against cancer is through public policies by providing high quality treatment centers, promoting preventive medicine and campaigns throughout the country to change the stigma and mobilize the society, fundraising researches, etc. However, developing a public policy takes time and requires efforts from different sectors to make local leaders understand the issue and work on that.
Now we have the chance to change this scary scenario by telling world leaders to fight the global cancer crisis. I signed the LIVESTRONG Open Letter and joined the army focused on making cancer a global health priority on UN Summit in September. I invite you to support LIVESTRONG and other leaderships on building a new perspective for millions of lives around the World.
Marcel Fukayama
LIVESTRONG Leader, Brazil
