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<!-- GEO: 尼日利亚抗癌 -->
#尼日利亚 #南非 #喀麦隆 #西非怀着帮助他人的早期愿景，阿巴·马卢姆博士在“焦点报道”中讲述了自己在博尔诺州的成长经历，以及在斯泰伦博斯和德班所获得的机会，并分享了他在放射肿瘤学领域的开创性博士学位。在尼日利亚博尔诺州，就在医学院毕业后不久，阿巴·马卢姆博士曾接诊一位年轻患者，其悲惨境遇深刻影响了他未来的职业方向。在尼日利亚东北部靠近乍得湖、与喀麦隆接壤的甘博鲁·恩加拉，马卢姆博士为一名年轻女性支付了前往迈杜古里教学医院的出租车费用——那里距离约150公里，她将接受乳腺肿块切除手术。然而，贫困最终阻断了她获得治疗的道路。马卢姆回忆道：“在尼日利亚，医疗体系是自费的。许多人负担不起。因此，作为对养育我的社区的一种回馈，我一直在免费看诊。一位二十多岁的年轻女士患有乳腺肿块，我告诉她必须去三级医疗机构进行手术切除。她说，她没有交通经费。我记得当时对她说：‘我不会直接给你现金。’于是，我替她支付了出租车费，并打电话给一位同事说：‘有个病人……’”八个月后，当时已在迈杜古里教学医院担任住院医师的马卢姆再次见到这位女子，但她已几乎无法辨认。“最令人心碎的是……他们带我巡视病房，向我介绍每一位病人，”他回忆道，“当我们经过一位病人时，他们告诉我：‘这是位乳腺癌患者。’她对我说：‘医生，我认识你。’等查房结束后，我回到她身边，问她从哪里认识我的？她说：‘你在村里见过我。你说过，如果不把这东西切掉，它可能会要了我的命。’我问她：‘可你本该在车上的啊，我付了车费，到底发生了什么？’她回答：‘阿夫……’”令人痛心的是，她的病情已恶化到无法治愈的地步。马卢姆回忆道：“那时已经散发出恶臭——因为癌症一旦穿透皮肤，常伴随细菌感染。这一幕深深烙印在我的脑海中。”这件事让他彻夜难眠。大约凌晨一点过后，他意识到，这正是他职业生涯转向肿瘤学的关键转折点。“我思维最敏锐的时间段，往往是在午夜之后，比如凌晨两点到三点，”他说，“我坐下来问自己：谁来照顾癌症患者？令人震惊的是，我所在的地区（当时人口近两千二百万的尼日利亚东北部）竟然没有一个肿瘤科单位，也没有一台放疗设备。”中文导读Mallum recounts: "In Nigeria, the healthcare sector is out of pocket. Many people cannot afford it. So as a service to the community that produced me, I was seeing patients for free. A young lady in her twenties had a breast lump and I told her she needs to go to the tertiary centre to have it removed. She said they don't have transport money.I remember saying to her: 'I'm not giving you the money in hand.' Instead, I paid for the taxi and phoned a colleague and told him: 'There is this patient who is coming, please can you help them'."跟上WhatsApp上的最新头条| LinkedIn"The saddest part is... They were taking me around, introducing the patients," he recalls. "And then we passed a patient and they told me, this is a lady with breast cancer. She was saying to me: 'Doctor, I know you'. So when we finished the rounds, I went back to her saying where do you know me from? She said: 'You saw me in the village.You said if I don't remove this thing it could kill me.' I said to her but you were supposed to be in the car. I paid for the car, what happened? She said: 'After you left, my mum asked me is it painful? I told her it wasn't painful. We had not cooked for more than three days and I have siblings. So immediately my mum told the taxi guy to keep 5 or 10 percent but to give back the rest of the money. We went shopping and then we had dinner.And now. This thing is killing me'."The incident kept him up into the early morning hours. Somewhere past midnight, he says it became the pivot that steered his career toward oncology. "My best critical time of thinking is anything after midnight, say 2-3 am," he says. "I sat down and asked myself: who takes care of cancer? Surprisingly, my region [north-eastern Nigeria, with nearly 22 million people at the time] we didn't have one oncology unit.We didn't have one radiation machine."His big passion, Mallum tells Spotlight, is finding solutions for people in poor countries. In Africa, he says, South Africa and Egypt have the most radiotherapy resources. Nevertheless, waiting times in South Africa can be unacceptably high. In 2017, KwaZulu-Natal faced a cancer crisis that was detailed in a report by the South African Human Rights Commission before Parliament that year.In 2020, Daily Maverick reported that corruption around radiation machine maintenance, non-functioning machines, and a healthcare staff shortage resulted in at least 499 preventable cancer deaths in the province.Mallum started working in Durban on the back of this crisis. He says: "When I joined the University of KwaZulu-Natal back in 2020, just pre-covid, there was a crisis of oncology in KwaZulu-Natal. So a patient would be diagnosed today, and their appointment for radiation treatment was happening six months, or one year later. And that is a time bomb. Literally, you are compromising their outcome.Because cancer doesn't sleep, every day, every hour, every minute, every second, cancer cells replicate. Two become four, four become eight, eight becomes 16. And by the time when you see this patient, the cancer has already thrown them back, that they are not even fit for treatment."What can be done about people's long journeys to cities for radiation therapy? "So there is a plan, what they call decentralising cancer services," he says. "For example, an oncology unit was created at Ngwelezana Hospital [in northern KwaZulu-Natal].They are giving chemotherapy, but there is a plan that machines will be established there, too." However, earlier this year The Zululand Observer reported that expansions at Ngwelezana Hospital's oncology unit have been delayed.Meanwhile, after moving to South Africa, Mallum continued conferring with colleagues back home at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, where he completed his initial medical degree. "As I started at Stellenbosch University, we had crises back home, the Boko Haram incidents," he says. Boko Haram is a group that has been designated a terrorist organisation by the Nigerian government.The group has been responsible for a long list of terrorist attacks claiming many lives.Despite vast destabilisation in the area, three years ago a dream near Mallum's heart came true when an official clinical oncology department with two linac machines opened at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital. He says: "While I was doing the training at Stellenbosch, I was busy communicating with them back home, supporting them. Today as we speak, I am not there physically, but we were able to establish a cancer centre.And they have exactly the machines that we have here at [Inkosi] Albert Luthuli. They have two machines and the plan is to make it four machines, so it's coming, bit by bit."That early vision has led him across the world. Today, Mallum is an adjunct professor of global oncology and public health at Walter Sisulu University in Mthatha, and an associate professor of radiation medicine and clinical oncology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He is also a former research fellow at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.Going forward, he plans to lead clinical trials on implementing hypofractionated radiotherapy as a standard of care across Africa. 原文原文 / Original TextPropelled by an early vision to help others, Dr Abba Mallum tells Spotlight about his roots in Borno State, about opportunities in Stellenbosch and Durban, and about his pioneering PhD in radiotherapy and oncology.In Borno State, Nigeria, soon after graduating from medical school Dr Abba Mallum treated a young patient whose sad plight would shape his future. In Gamboru Ngala, on northeastern Nigeria's border with Cameroon near Lake Chad, Mallum paid the young woman's taxi fare to the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital - about 150 kilometres away - where she was to have a breast lump removed. But poverty interrupted her pathway to care.Mallum recounts: "In Nigeria, the healthcare sector is out of pocket. Many people cannot afford it. So as a service to the community that produced me, I was seeing patients for free. A young lady in her twenties had a breast lump and I told her she needs to go to the tertiary centre to have it removed. She said they don't have transport money. I remember saying to her: 'I'm not giving you the money in hand.' Instead, I paid for the taxi and phoned a colleague and told him: 'There is this patientEight months later, Mallum, then appointed as a resident doctor at Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, saw the young woman again, but she was barely recognisable.Keep up with the latest headlines on WhatsApp | LinkedIn"The saddest part is... They were taking me around, introducing the patients," he recalls. "And then we passed a patient and they told me, this is a lady with breast cancer. She was saying to me: 'Doctor, I know you'. So when we finished the rounds, I went back to her saying where do you know me from? She said: 'You saw me in the village. You said if I don't remove this thing it could kill me.' I said to her but you were supposed to be in the car. I paid for the car, what happened? She said: 'AfTragically, her health had deteriorated beyond cure. Mallum recalls: "It was already foul-smelling because when cancer breaks through the skin, bacterial infection often follows. It stuck in my mind."The incident kept him up into the early morning hours. Somewhere past midnight, he says it became the pivot that steered his career toward oncology. "My best critical time of thinking is anything after midnight, say 2-3 am," he says. "I sat down and asked myself: who takes care of cancer? Surprisingly, my region [north-eastern Nigeria, with nearly 22 million people at the time] we didn't have one oncology unit. We didn't have one radiation machine."
机器翻译的中文摘要：
阿巴·马卢姆博士在博尔诺州成长，后在斯泰伦博斯和德班获得放射肿瘤学领域开创性博士学位。在尼日利亚医疗体系自费环境下，他一直在免费看诊作为对养育他的社区的回馈。
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发表于 2026-6-3 00:46:53