Everyone Is Going Pink for October

Everyone Is Going Pink for October
By Aoife Manning

With Cancer Awareness the hot topic of everyone's agenda this month the INMO has also taken their own initiative to help battle cancer and raise awareness amongst its members.

The INMO and Cornmarket have had a great response to the Pink Power Free Breast Health Assessment initiative nurses. It is exclusively available to members of the INMO Income Protection scheme.

The response rate in Dublin following the launch was very promising. Over 48% of those invited took part. Assessments have been carried out around Dublin City all September and are continuing this month. Cork City and Bantry experienced a similar response with a 47% response rate.

But October is not all about Pink Power, the INMO are also running a Blue Power Initiative. The aim of the programme is to make a prostate and testicular assessment available to all male nurse members.

It's been a month of Pink Fundraisers and charity events all in aid of breast cancer awareness. As well as these events there were the shocking headlines of the failures of the Irish health system.

In the news we have seen or read about the woman Mrs. Fahey who was misdiagnosed. The diagnosis came after 19 months from the day she was first referred to Barrington's Hospital in Limerick. The tests were repeatedly returned negative from UCHG when they were in fact positive. These events led to the series of investigations and reorganisation that have improved the cancer health service in Ireland. This also led to the centralisation of breast cancer diagnosis and treatment in 8 specialist centres across Ireland.

Being misdiagnosed is a terrible mistake for any hospital or laboratory to make, but from this unfortunate event there has been improvements made to make sure this kind of thing will not happen again.

One in ten women in Ireland will get breast cancer and over 2,500 women will be newly-diagnosed this year. Three quarters of these women will be over 50. An average of 621 women die from breast cancer each year.

With this in mind we must commend all the companies and people who have been raising money and will continue to do so throughout October.

One example is Ever Green Health Food Stores went All Pink to raise funds for National Breast Cancer Research Institute. They are offering a percentage of their sales from their most popular products, which will be marked in Pink in store. Even Liam Neeson stripped down to Pink Pants for breast cancer awareness month on the Ellen DeGeneres show.

More than one in ten women are not aware how to check for signs of breast cancer. This needs to change as the disease claims more than 600 lives every year. The Pink Power and Blue Power for nurses is a great initiative and is a step in the right direction for cancer awareness. Over 80% of women are surviving breast cancer for five years or longer with continued research. Women are becoming more aware of symptoms and early detection is key.

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