Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI) has raised alarm over the widespread abandonment of women diagnosed with breast and cervical cancer by their husbands during and after treatment, warning that it is contributing to low survival rates among patients. These two cancers remain the leading causes of cancer-related deaths among Ugandan women, claiming 6,342 lives annually -equivalent to 17 deaths every single day.
Cervical cancer alone kills 4,782 women each year, or 13 per day -a toll comparable to a fully loaded 14-seater taxi crashing and claiming almost all passengers daily, according to the 2022 World Health Organisation report. Dr Nixon Niyonzima, the head of research and training at UCI, expressed frustration in an interview with the Daily Monitor on Thursday.
‘We see very few husbands at the bedside of their wives. Most women are cared for by their mothers, sisters, or children,’ he said.
‘We have also had cases where men, especially when their wives get breast cancer or cervical cancer, they actually abandon the woman and get another wife,’ Dr Niyonzima added.
‘This causes untold trauma to our mothers. I want to encourage men to be part of the care process because it’s paramount, it’s critical to our mothers and our sisters’ survival,’ he added.
Dr Niyonzima further said cancer care is challenging and for a patient to survive, they should receive a lot of social and psychological support. ‘Cancer itself is challenging, and I think the support is very important,’ he said.
Mary Amuno from Makerere University Sociology Department, in a 2019 report of a small study among breast cancer patients at UCI, confirmed this trend. The report states that of the 20 respondents interviewed, ‘only five (25 percent) of women were still in a proper relationship with their spouses and relatives’ who support them financially and accompany them to hospital for treatment. ‘As soon as I was diagnosed with breast cancer and l told my husband, relatives and friends, they started giving me distance and my husband’s character changed,’ one of the abandoned mothers narrated to the researcher.
‘He could always quarrel with me and since I came to Mulago, I have now spent one full year staying here without anybody from my family checking on me or even receiving a phone call,’ she added.
The researcher observed that from her analysis, ‘there exists lack of proper relationships between breast cancer patients and spouses, which has made them susceptible to emotional over load’ and ‘the community also has excluded them from the social gatherings.’
Makubuya sticks around
When our reporter visited UCI last week, we found a few men taking care of their wives and other patients. But the majority of patients, who benefited from the recently concluded breast surgery camp where 40 women received free surgery, were being looked after by women.
Davis Makubuya from Mukono District, embodies the husbands who stay. His story contrasts the abandonment Niyonzima decries. His wife, Susan Agwang Makubuya, noticed breast swelling in 2021; by 2022, tests confirmed cancer.
Referred to UCI, they navigated a year of treatment, hitting financial walls until a free October breast camp offered surgery. ‘We have been waiting for seven months. The services are good-no fees,’ Makubuya said last Thursday. ‘Being with my wife. I have slept on the cement. It has made a lot of sense to me and impacted my love story. I feel proud I have stood with her in this testing time. It’s about commitment to your wife. We have four children,’ he added.
Why men abandon wives
Available studies indicate that husbands abandon wives because of a range of issues, which are largely based on myths and misconceptions. These include avoiding financial stress related to cancer treatment and belief that they shouldn’t waste money on the women because they will die since the disease ‘has no cure’.
But UCI specialists say the disease is curable and chance of cure increases when detected early. But some men, according to researchers, also abandon women claiming their women had lifestyles that increased the risk of cancer. But UCI surgeon, Dr Edward Kakungulu said one can develop cancer even without engaging in risky lifestyles such as alcohol consumption and smoking. He said some people have inherited mutations that naturally increase their cancer risks.
2023 findings
A 2023 study in Mid-Western Uganda by Marlieke de Fouw and colleagues discovered that women with cervical cancer suffer from stigmatisation and abandonment ‘due to loss of fertility, less marital sexual activity, domestic violence and decreased economic productivity.’ According to the discussions with men in the communities, researchers discovered that women faced abandonment because some linked having cervical cancer to adultery of the woman.
‘This infection is through sexual intercourse so the man will know that his wife cheated on him, that is why she has cervical cancer (..) Now the man will start doubting his wife and he may chase her from his home,’ one of the participants told researchers, pointing to the need for more awareness.
Surgery
Women who have undergone surgery to remove their breast or uterus also face higher risk of abandonment, because the men no longer categorise them as women, according to the report. ‘Cancer scares men more than HIV/Aids. Aids has tablets, but with cancer, where are they? People with cancer, you will find a woman without her breast,’ one of the community members stated. Another community member said: ‘A woman without a uterus is no longer a woman.’ This trend and perception is not unique to Uganda.
Another research in Tanzania found that women were equally going through a lot of trauma due to abandonment. ‘I met one lady who told me that her husband had run away from her, saying that she resembles the devil because she had only one breast,’ a patient narrated to researcher Mackenzie N Abraham.
Another patient said: ‘The men say that we get this disease because we refused to breastfeed their children. Others say that we get it because we stopped bearing children early. We suffer a lot because they call us all sorts of names .’