Access to Healthcare

A Cervical Cancer Survivor Tells Her Story

Rumbidzai Mushayi had never received a cervical cancer screening until she'd already developed the disease. In Zimbabwe, where she lives, cervical cancer care is not readily available. Of the approximately 311,000 women who died from cervical cancer in 2018, more than 85 percent of them lived in low- and middle-income countries. These are unnecessary deaths, because cervical cancer is both preventable and treatable. Mushayi was eventually able to get the medical care she needed to survive, with assistance from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). But, she warns, “one must not delay to seek treatment. Do not wait to be ferried by a wheel barrow or an ox-drawn cart to the hospital." She worried about having a surgical procedure, but is glad she did it. “The pain has eased, and I can now sleep peacefully,” she says. Read more about cervical cancer and MSF's work to help more women survive: https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/what-we-do/news-stories/story/no-woman-should-die-cervical-cancer