Every day, 17 Kiwis are diagnosed with a gut cancer - one of the five cancers that includes stomach, liver, pancreatic, bowel, oesophagus and gallbladder.
That’s more than 6000 Kiwis every year, making gut cancers the most common type of killer cancer in Aotearoa.
This month, the Gut Cancer Foundation hopes to raise $350,000 through its Give it Up drive where people can give get more mobile and exercise, give up alcohol for the month or sugar. You can participate or donate to the campaign.
Kirk Bakker and his construction company C3 Construction - whose company’s vision is: Do the right thing, Take care of people, Enjoy the challenge - is supporting this initiative.
While Bakker is Ngāti Pakeha, his business partner Tamati Parker is Māori and Bakker’s dad died from stomach cancer.
“Dad was an active guy as an electrician but a few years back at Christmas, he said he didn’t feel so well and we thought it might have been too much good Christmas enjoyment,” Bakker said.
“He went to the doctor and was diagnosed with stomach cancer and died five months later. It happened that quickly.”
After meeting Willis, Bakker put out an email to his 40 staff to help support the Give it Up cause and went dollar for dollar and donated $20,000 to the campaign.
Willis says Gut Cancer is often considered the younger sibling and not often talked about among cancer care and funding.
“For every nine people that die from breast cancer, 27 people survive, which is fantastic because a lot of money has gone into research and the five-year survival rate for breast cancer is 90 per cent and that’s amazing and shows the progress that’s been made with treatments, screenings and awareness,” he said.
“But take pancreatic cancer, which comes under the Gut Cancer scope. For everyone nine people diagnosed, one person survives.
“This is by no means to take away from the other cancer groups, but the survival rates have a big impact on the voice of these cancers and it is important that we take that lead role.
“If you look specifically at Māori, there are definitive inequities when you drill down into these cancers. With pancreatic cancer, incidence rates are twice as high for Māori than non-Māori and stomach cancer is another with major inequities.
“Stomach cancer, liver cancer and pancreatic cancers have common threads like poverty, poor housing and poor access to healthcare.
“The inequities that Māori face places them at higher risks when you take those environmental factors into account.”
To join the campaign or to donate, go to https://www.gutcancer.org.nz/
