Ironbridge Lions Club was honoured as runner-up at the Telford & Wrekin Active Lifestyle Awards ceremony last week, for their highly successful prostate cancer screening event staged in Madeley earlier this year.
The Awards aim to promote and recognise Health and Wellbeing through an active lifestyle. Recognition was given to those who encouraged healthier lifestyles, improvement of mental wellbeing and mental health and strengthening of communities and community based support.
Mavis Derham, President of Ironbridge Lions in 2015-16, came up with the idea for the event after speaking to Mr David Baxter-Smith, a retired Consultant Urological Surgeon who to date has arranged over 76,000 PSA blood tests for organisations such as Lions Clubs.
To stage the event Ironbridge Lions raised more than £7,000 which provided a venue, PSA blood tests and associated administration costs for 420 men, all keen to take advantage of the opportunity to be tested in the absence of a national screening programme.
Of those men tested, around 15% were advised to seek further medical advice and at least one case of a highly aggressive prostate cancer was detected in a man who previously had presented no outward symptoms.
“Nationally, one man an hour dies of prostate cancer,” said Mrs Derham, “and in Telford and Wrekin 250 men each year are diagnosed with the disease which is known as the ‘silent killer’ because it rarely displays outward symptoms until it has taken an aggressive hold.
“Currently there is no national screening programme for prostate cancer, despite it having been proved that with early diagnosis there is a high chance of survival. I was pleased to have the opportunity to instigate such a worthwhile project and its success has moved the club to start fundraising for a repeat event to be staged on 26th March 2018.”
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