The fight against cancer and cardiovascular disease - the top two top killers in Singapore - goes into the heartlands with free screening for 600 needy families and subsidised rates for others.

This is part of the My Happy Healthy Family (MHHF) campaign, which is jointly organised by the Singapore Heart Foundation (SHF), the Singapore Cancer Society (SCS) and pharmaceutical company Novartis Singapore.

Launched earlier this week, the campaign targets the family unit, encouraging all members in a family to work together to be proactive in preventing cancer. To this end, a range of public forums, talks and screening activities will be held over the next few months. The campaign runs from now until December.

The mammobus, a coach converted into a mobile breast cancer screening unit, will be on hand to conduct mammography and teach breast self-examination.

Chairman of SCS Dr Koo Wen Hsin said: "In the past, cost was a main deterrent for those from the lower income group to go for cancer screening.

"We hope this screening exercise will enable more people to come forward. If detected early, cancer is a curable disease."

In Singapore, cancer and cardiovascular disease (which includes stroke and heart disease) were responsible for some six in 10 deaths last year.

In November and December, mobile screening will be conducted at heartland locations like community clubs. The screening will include free cancer tests - the Pap smear (for cervical cancer screening) and the faecal occult blood test (colorectal cancer screening).

Mammography, which tests for breast cancer, will be at the subsidised rate of $50 for citizens and permanent residents, while screening for stroke and heart disease risk will cost $5.

Young children will be involved in the MHHF campaign as well - one initiative is to distribute 10,000 copies of a cancer and heart disease prevention booklet to Primary schools next month.

Children are an important channel to reach the entire family unit, reckoned Dr Lam Pin Min, the deputy chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Health.

"(Imagine) a child who goes back home and asks a parent who's a smoker, 'Daddy, I was told that second-hand smoke can cause lung cancer. Will I grow up to develop lung cancer?'

"You can imagine that the impact on the parent will be quite dramatic," said Dr Lam, who was speaking at the campaign's press launch.

"And that may be a good way of educating the parents, rather than putting up a horrible poster of a (dying smoker). A hardcore smoker will look at it and go, 'Thank you, I'll still continue to smoke.'"

SCS Medical Director Dr Donald Poon said he hopes the campaign's screening exercise will have spillover effects, reminding the public at large to go for regular screenings.

With early detection, "we save them (from) painful treatment in the advanced stages", said Dr Poon at the press launch.

A common reason cited by patients with advanced cancer, he said, as to why they would go through painful chemotherapy for maybe an extra year to live is so they can see their children grow up, or to witness certain life events in their families.

Dr Lam made the same call for screening. "If you're able to detect a disease early on and get it treated early, then the chance of a total cure is actually quite high.

"Being diagnosed with cancer is not a death sentence," said Dr Lam.

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Details on mobile screening

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