{"id":434,"date":"2015-12-02T09:24:51","date_gmt":"2015-12-02T14:24:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/toh.masm.ca\/en\/?p=434"},"modified":"2021-02-17T11:43:52","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T16:43:52","slug":"rwanda-where-lollipops-equal-disney-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/uncategorized\/rwanda-where-lollipops-equal-disney-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Rwanda: where lollipops equal Disney World"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text-center\"><em>\u201cThis is a lady who I saved last year, from breast cancer,\u201d said Dr. Roanne Segal (left). She is also paying for her patient\u2019s daughter to go to school. \u201cThose were the little things where I made a small difference in their lives.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>While she was in Rwanda, Dr. Roanne Segal made a trip to the city one weekend and bought a bag of lollipops for $10. She gave one to a little girl with a huge tumour on her abdomen but she didn\u2019t have the strength to eat it. She died 48 hours later.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHer mother wanted to thank me because her daughter had never had a lollipop,\u201d said Dr. Segal, Medical Oncologist. \u201cThat\u2019s their equivalent of a trip to Disney World. We both cried.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Segal joined Partners in Health and travelled to the northern region of Rwanda to help educate the medical staff and advance the current oncology care that exists there.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe hospital had local Rwandan general physicians, internists and U.S.-trained internal medicine physicians who would go over for a period of time to provide care as consultants,\u201d she explained. \u201cBut they didn\u2019t have an oncologist. I offered my services. I didn\u2019t quite appreciate what I was getting into.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Dr. Roanne Segal\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/K6ErilmQ1es\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Partners in Health serves to advance care in underserviced areas. Initially, it worked in infectious diseases but more recently it has been developing internal medicine and oncology programs.<\/p>\n<p>Both infrastructure and strategies need to be considered when setting up new programs. For oncology, several of the more responsive tumours were selected. \u201cBreast cancer is one of these tumours, having many therapies that are relatively inexpensive and minimally toxic,\u201d said Dr. Segal. \u201cThey identified that they could make a big difference with the young women there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes patients had to travel for three days to get to the hospital, which was on top of a mountain. Some arrived by bike, bus or cow.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was the consultant physician and was offered a nicer &nbsp;room as well as other advantages. You realize they are bending over backwards to show their appreciation,\u201d said Dr. Segal. \u201cThey offer their warmth and kindness. You\u2019re never hungry but you clearly realize how self-entitled you are.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-435 aligncenter img-responsive\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/JE-Oct-28-Roanne-Segal-2.jpg\" alt=\"JE+Oct+28+Roanne+Segal+#2\" width=\"240\" height=\"237\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/JE-Oct-28-Roanne-Segal-2.jpg 240w, https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/JE-Oct-28-Roanne-Segal-2-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"text-center\"><em>\u201cThis is one of the children we cured,\u201d said Dr. Roanne Segal. She started baking sweets for the children, a treat they looked forward to since they couldn\u2019t afford any on their own.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Dr. Segal had to rely on limited resources and make difficult choices based on cost to the patient. Partners in Health donates the chemotherapy drugs but other costs have to be covered by a combination of the patients\u2019 limited insurance or out of their own pockets.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey had to pay for every decision I made and they had little or no money,\u201d she said. \u201cI had to ask myself, \u2018Is this X-ray going to change what I can do or just confirm what I know? I felt like a first-year medical student all over again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Throughout her six-week stay in Rwanda, Dr. Segal faced some gruelling conditions and massive learning curves.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNothing means the same as it does here. I was learning within their culture and environment what was best and they had to learn to trust me,\u201d she explained. \u201cI consider myself tough physically and otherwise but I struggled. It was a great kick in the pants and a great learning experience. However difficult it was for me, I realized that I could leave and go home. They can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Segal returned to The Ottawa Hospital with an attitude of acceptance and understanding.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople say \u2018Why do you bother?\u2019 but people felt valued,\u201d she said. \u201cI shrank those tumours and I figured out how to treat them, despite some very challenging conditions, and showed them that they mattered. I could put a kid through school for $5.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The impact of her efforts has inspired her and opened up a window to a new culture.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis year, I\u2019ll do another small thing. It will grow. If you don\u2019t try, you\u2019re never going to get anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThis is a lady who I saved last year, from breast cancer,\u201d said Dr. Roanne Segal (left). She is also paying for her patient\u2019s daughter to go to school. \u201cThose were the little things where I made a small difference in their lives.\u201d While she was in Rwanda, Dr. Roanne Segal made a trip to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}