Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Men are be­ing urged not to wait un­til symp­toms ap­pear be­fore seek­ing med­ical ad­vice about prostate can­cer.

Ad­dress­ing the 40th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions of Di­vali Na­gar in Ch­agua­nas on Sat­ur­day, for­mer min­is­ter Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan, who re­vealed that he is bat­tling stage-four metasta­t­ic prostate can­cer, said his ex­pe­ri­ence should serve as a warn­ing to men about the im­por­tance of ear­ly screen­ing and tak­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their health.

Di­ag­nosed on Feb­ru­ary 4 this year, Ram­bachan told pa­trons his mes­sage had the po­ten­tial to save lives.

“I have come to Di­vali Na­gar tonight with a mes­sage that could save your life. It is a mes­sage I wish some­one had im­pressed up­on me years ago. It is a mes­sage every man needs to hear, and every woman needs to take home to the men she loves,” he said.

In an ad­dress, ti­tled Don’t Make the Mis­take I Made, Ram­bachan re­flect­ed on his fail­ure to pri­ori­tise reg­u­lar prostate health checks.

He dis­closed that the can­cer has spread to his bones and ad­mit­ted he had not tak­en the nec­es­sary steps to mon­i­tor his prostate health.

“Per­haps I thought I was healthy. Per­haps I be­lieved that if noth­ing hurt, noth­ing se­ri­ous could be wrong. Per­haps I sim­ply kept putting it off,” he said.

Ram­bachan, who was among three peo­ple award­ed with the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the coun­try’s high­est na­tion­al ho­n­our, at this year’s Na­tion­al Awards cer­e­mo­ny, warned that prostate can­cer can de­vel­op silent­ly in its ear­ly stages, cau­tion­ing men against as­sum­ing they are healthy sim­ply be­cause they are not ex­pe­ri­enc­ing pain or uri­nary prob­lems.

“Can­cer does not wait for us to get around to it,” he said.

He al­so ad­dressed the fear and em­bar­rass­ment that of­ten pre­vent men from dis­cussing prostate health with their doc­tors.

“There is noth­ing shame­ful about check­ing your prostate health. There is noth­ing un­man­ly about ask­ing your doc­tor ques­tions. There is cer­tain­ly noth­ing coura­geous about ig­nor­ing a po­ten­tial threat to your life,” he said.

Ram­bachan ex­plained that a prostate-spe­cif­ic anti­gen (PSA) blood test can help as­sess the pos­si­bil­i­ty of prostate dis­ease, in­clud­ing can­cer, but stressed the re­sults should al­ways be in­ter­pret­ed by a health­care pro­fes­sion­al.

He en­cour­aged men to dis­cuss their per­son­al risk fac­tors, as well as the ben­e­fits and lim­i­ta­tions of test­ing, with their doc­tors. Those with a fam­i­ly his­to­ry of prostate can­cer, par­tic­u­lar­ly men whose fa­thers or broth­ers have been di­ag­nosed with the dis­ease, should be es­pe­cial­ly vig­i­lant, he added.

Ram­bachan al­so ap­pealed to women to en­cour­age the men in their lives to seek med­ical ad­vice and arrange ap­pro­pri­ate screen­ing.

He said he is cur­rent­ly un­der­go­ing treat­ment, hav­ing en­dured chemother­a­py and the un­cer­tain­ty that comes with an ad­vanced can­cer di­ag­no­sis. De­spite those chal­lenges, he cred­it­ed his faith in God, the sup­port of his fam­i­ly and his de­ter­mi­na­tion for help­ing him per­se­vere.

“I do not stand be­fore you claim­ing that faith alone cures can­cer. I stand be­fore you as a man who be­lieves that faith can give us strength, that med­i­cine can give us treat­ment op­tions, and that we must nev­er ne­glect the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties with­in our con­trol,” he said.

Urg­ing men not to de­lay, Ram­bachan added, “I can­not un­do my mis­take, but per­haps I can help you avoid yours.”

Dur­ing his ad­dress, Ram­bachan al­so con­grat­u­lat­ed the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) on four decades of host­ing Di­vali Na­gar, prais­ing its role in pre­serv­ing Hin­du tra­di­tions, pro­mot­ing East In­di­an her­itage and fos­ter­ing na­tion­al uni­ty through cul­tur­al un­der­stand­ing.

He paid trib­ute to the late Hans­ley Shamb­hu Hanoomans­ingh, whose vi­sion led to the cre­ation of the cul­tur­al vil­lage, and sug­gest­ed that a bust be erect­ed in his ho­n­our at the site.

Ram­bachan fur­ther pro­posed that the NCIC doc­u­ment its 40-year his­to­ry in a pub­li­ca­tion that could serve both as a his­tor­i­cal record and a man­age­ment guide for oth­er cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tions.

He al­so rec­om­mend­ed that the NCIC and groups such as SE­WA TT share their ex­pe­ri­ences with stu­dents at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, par­tic­u­lar­ly those pur­su­ing stud­ies in man­age­ment and cul­tur­al de­vel­op­ment.