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Anna Wagstaff
Voices from WOF: “We have to shift from the thinking: we’ll tell everybody what to do and they will all get better”
What progress can we point to? I think there has been a lot of progress and it has been incremental. Ten years ago, one of the biggest obstacles was the belief that this is not going to work. When we…
Voices from WOF: “We need another approach to funding, where governments together with development banks play the overarching role”
What progress can we point to? Firstly, there is more awareness in the community about cancer, and that cancer is becoming increasingly a problem of developing countries. Fifteen years ago everyone was thinking that cancer was a disease of the…
Voices from WOF: “We need to ensure we have accountability, and simplify the metrics on what success looks like”
What progress can we point to? I think it has been a fabulous 10 years. We’ve really seen that the awareness and global political commitment is much stronger than 10 years ago. We have much better data, we publish the…
Voices from WOF: “We need to make care affordable and strengthen our health workforce”
What progress can we point to? I think there has been a tremendous amount of progress in understanding the dimensions and distribution of cancer as a growing global threat. Not only about the types of cancer in each region, but…
Voices from WOF: “In this post-Covid world we have new opportunities to harness technology”
What progress can we point to? In today’s global health world, we do now understand that noncommunicable diseases [NCDs] are a priority, and within NCDs, that cancer is the highest priority. But are countries discussing this, and thinking about strategies?…
Voices from WOF: “We need to think critically about how our healthcare system can deliver the best for patients”
What progress can we point to? In Africa, there is a growing awareness of cancers, not just among the healthcare professionals but also communities. This has been largely due to grassroots advocacy – people who were cancer champions coming out…
Voices from WOF: “We’ve been talking to decision makers for 20 years. It hasn’t worked. We have to engage better with the public”
What progress can we point to? In the last 10 years we have seen significant progress in science and the depth of understanding of cancer – its complexity and biology. We also have new tools available, so patients with cancer…
Voices from WOF: What is not being discussed is how do we improve wellbeing?
What progress can we point to? I think we have made good progress in prevention, secondary prevention, especially in terms of screening for cervical cancer, HPV vaccination, elimination of cervical cancer – that is where we are heading in the…
Europe’s patient advocates skill up to better influence cancer care and research agendas
Patient advocates for a wide range of cancer communities across Europe spent four days at the start of July honing the skills they need to influence the policy, research and healthcare decisions that matter to them. This was the second…
Mariam Kukhalashvili: solving Georgia’s cancer problems
Clinical oncologist Mariam Kukhalashvili was only 32 when, in 2021, she was appointed head of the outpatient department at the Western Georgia Oncology Centre in Kutaisi – one of the largest and most up-to-date cancer services outside the capital Tbilisi.…