Carmen Monge-Montero, Researcher and Global Cancer Advocate, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Cancer care in Latin America. Some learnings from living in 4 countries in the last 2 years.
Over the past two years, I met incredible people across Latin America who are shaping cancer care in ways that often go unseen.
As a cancer survivor and researcher, I had the opportunity to experience healthcare systems in Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Costa Rica, not only from a professional perspective, but also from a very personal one.
What I found was both inspiring and challenging:
- Fewer resources, but highly skilled and resourceful professionals.
- Strong community and family support, even inside hospital rooms.
- Persistent stigma around cancer and reliance on alternative medicine.
- Major gaps in survivorship care, especially for AYA patients.
The Right To Be Forgotten and laws to protect people with a lived cancer experience are in the works in the region. Costa Rica is waiting for approval at the Asamblea Legislativa de la República de Costa Rica.
There is so much to learn from Latin America, not only about limitations but also about the quality of the professionals, resilience, warmth, and collective care. Having experienced cancer care both as a patient and a researcher, I believe there is still an important opportunity to better integrate patient and survivor voices into global discussions on cancer in Latin America.
I recently wrote a longer reflection about this experience.
Here are some of the amazing people who helped to understand the system a little bit better in Costa Rica, Colombia, Perú, Chile, Bolivia and all the MANO Beyond Cancer interviews from Latin America.”
Other articles featuring Carmen Monge-Montero on OncoDaily.
