FORMER DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER, Dame Billie Miller, is encouraged by the number of men supporting and motivating their significant others to get their annual checks for cancer.
However, she said more could still be done as she advised those not yet on the bandwagon to join as breast and cervical cancers, in particular, continued to take the lives of many women.
Dame Billie, a 25-year cancer survivor, was at the time volunteering at the annual Celebrity Day hosted by the Barbados Cancer Society at Sheraton Centre yesterday.
She told the DAILY NATION that when she began volunteering with the Cancer Society at the onset of its Pink Ribbon initiative, while men would contribute to the cause, they would decline to wear the signature pink ribbon because the colour was perceived to be feminine.
“Ten years or less later, young men come up to me, ‘I want the pink ribbon; this thing kill my grandmother. Give me two if necessary’. So there is much better awareness. Sometimes I counsel men to be very much aware of the women you love. Your mother, grandmother, daughter, your girlfriend, your wife, whoever, get behind them every year [to] go and have their pap smear done. And quite a few men do that. I have a dear friend from school and her husband is the one that makes the appointment every year; it is very important,” she said.
Other personalities were also on hand at the Christ Church mall to support the effort. Among them were entertainer and Barbados Labour Party candidate John King, who also urged men to get involved. (SDB Media)
