We must defeat cancer

Saturday, March 26, 2022, we buried James Mwebesa Rukwengye. James was the social manager at Shimuji-Konoike, the joint venture company constructing the Kampala flyover. The Social manager, we were told, has the key role of ensuring that any undertaking on the project has complied with and met the social interests of the community interfacing with the construction and related works.

At 52, James died at his prime. In December 1999, I had the privilege to speak on behalf of all his friends at his wedding reception. On March 25, 2022, I did the eulogising on behalf of all his friends. Mourning we did mourn, but my mourning in due course turned into holy anger (Fr Dr Waliggo, RIP, coined the term). Yes. Holy anger. Holy anger because it’s neither destructive nor ill-intentioned. It is anger against our lukewarm policies and regulations that are rendering us one of the most cancer-prone country in the world. Yes. Cancer. Cancer robbed us of James.  The simplified explanation from the post-mortem says the cancer ate away the inner lining of the intestines, and spread to the liver. A few days earlier, he had informed us of the tests and biopsy findings, and we encouraged him with our usual childhood-classmate jokes. We were wrong.

Cancer defeated us. Cancer devoured James. Will James be the last to die of preventable cancer?  It is possible. It is impossible. Possible if we stop to rethink our policies, regulations and behaviour that give cancer an express highway into our lives. Impossible if we keep our current ways, where no one is safe.

And since no one is safe till everyone is safe, a few mundane questions in respect to cancer prevention. Mundane question number one: is kaveera banned in this country? The new executive director at Nema has since gone silent, after the standard ritual of ‘commitment’ upon assuming office. What regulation is needed to ban and eliminate kaveera? How far is it? Who is working on it? Is it a private member’s Bill or it is government Bill? Benchmarking is a key word in our legislators’ and policy makers’ vocabulary: how soon shall we see a high-powered delegation to benchmark how our neighbours went about banning kaveera?  Can we use funds from the Environmental Levy to subsidise the current manufacturers of kaveera to switch into biodegradable packaging materials?

As we address security in the mandatory fixing of tracking devices in all vehicles, can we do the same for the catalytic converter? This neutralises exhaust fumes and renders them harmless. Fossil fuel vehicles are still with us for some time, and our case is worse: we import aged vehicles, first class polluters.

Related to this, can our city and municipal councils invest in fumigation chambers for vehicles? This is particularly vital for passenger service vehicles. Our mass transport carriers, the 14-seater vans are stores of microbes in their velvet seats. Is it difficult to ban the use of velvet seats in these PSV vans? 

Which agency licenses, supervises, regulates fumigators in our cities and towns? Is it Ministry of Health, local authorities, Nema, UNBS, NDA?

We will repeat this for the nth time: abattoirs must be banned from cities and towns. We eat poisoned meat, from hormones of fear, released by tortured animals from the loading points, on the road, and in the slaughter houses. It is no rocket science to have insulated trucks to carry meat from slaughter houses upcountry into licenced, structured, supervised, chains of meats kiosks.

We must defeat cancer. James must be the last to die of preventable cancer. It is possible.

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