Spanish-speaking cancer patients share treatment experiences
Cristina Moya
Like all cancer survivors, Cristina Moya is happy to be alive. But the Boston resident also knows that had she been living in her native country when diagnosed, that might not be the case.
"If I was in the Dominican Republic, I probably would have died," Moya told Dana-Farber staff and patients attending a celebration of Latino Hispanic Heritage Month. "Because it's an extremely poor country, the hospitals cannot get most people the care they need. There is also a stigma attached to cancer in the Dominican Republic — people are made to feel there is something they did to deserve the disease. They have to suffer in silence."
Moya started treatment at Dana-Farber for advanced breast cancer in February 2006 and is now in remission. She was one of three survivors who shared their stories and took questions at the Sept. 18 event.
Speaking in Spanish and interpreted by Laura Nakazawa, Dana-Farber's program coordinator for Interpreter Services, Moya discussed the challenges she faced as a patient: limited financial resources, no command of English, and an 11-year-old daughter who was frightened her mom would die — just as her aunt, Moya's sister, did after her cancer diagnosis a decade earlier.
"The Patient Navigator Program became my main source of support here," Moya said of Dana-Farber's bilingual service, which addresses health disparities among women with breast and cervical cancer and helps them through treatment. "They eased my fears, and arranged for a counselor from Children's Hospital Boston to speak with my daughter on a regular basis. With their help, I got through."
Fellow panelists Marina Baez and Angel Figueroa also spoke highly of their care, but shared Moya's feelings that one thing they missed most was a support group of other Latino patients. No such program currently exists at Dana-Farber, although Nakazawa says one is now being organized with a Spanish-speaking moderator.
"When you don't have the ability to voice your questions and emotions among your peers, it compounds your problems," says Nakazawa. "We've offered to send interpreters to support groups with people, but patients want to feel more connected to a group. It's wonderful they're soon going to have that opportunity."
Being able to talk openly about their disease, side effects, and fears is especially important when one has grown up in an environment where cancer is not discussed — even with patients themselves.
"In the Dominican Republic, when someone has cancer, the doctor usually tells the family, but not the patient," said Baez, who was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2007. "My sister died of bone cancer, and never knew she had it."
In cases where people do discover they have cancer, Moya said, they often will not tell anybody until they are near death, at which time they make living arrangements for their children.
Lack of knowledge is another challenge. "There's a machismo thing about cancer among Latino men, but they don't really understand the disease," said Figueroa, a native of Puerto Rico. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2006 after a visit to Dana-Farber's Blum Family Resource Center Van, which travels throughout Greater Boston to educate men about the disease and give free screenings.
"When some guys found out I had to take hormonal treatments for my prostate cancer, they thought I'd start growing female organs."
Dana-Farber is working to educate people of all cultures about cancer before and after diagnosis, through services provided by Community Benefits, the Patient Navigator Program, and events like this one, sponsored jointly by Dana-Farber's Cultural Observances Committee, the Employees of Color Resource Group, and the Office of Diversity and Talent Management.
The panel was moderated by Director of Community Benefits Magnolia Contreras, MSW, MBA, and preceded by a Latino-themed lunch and the music of Soraya, a pop singer born in New Jersey to Columbian parents who was a passionate advocate and educator about breast cancer before her death in 2006 at age 37.
— Saul Wisnia
saul_wisnia@dfci.harvard.edu
