One Communications to push cancer testing, amid mixed response to Health Ministry’s screening efforts

Last Updated on Wednesday, 16 September 2026, 12:49 by Written By Denis Chabrol

One Communications, formerly GTT, on Wednesday pledged to drive greater public awareness about the need for Guyanese to test for cancers, at a time when the Health Ministry said more women need to check for breast cancer and there has been an increase in the number of prostate cancer cases.

Chief Executive Officer of One Communications Abraham Smith told the launch of Pinktober 2026 that the company would be going beyond the breast cancer walk on October 25. “We know we can get thousands of Guyanese to show up and walk. We’ve done that for a decade. But now we have to ask ourselves, can we get thousands to screen?,” he said. He also said the company would no longer focus exclusively on breast cancer but this year October’s activities, which would held under the theme, “One Hope”, is for everyone who is affected by cancer. The telecoms company boss indicated that the time had come to change behaviours by encouraging thousands of persons to use mammogram vouchers, and convince men to talk with their doctors about Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) testing to detect whether they have prostate cancer. This has to go beyond slogans and make sure that it turns into action and so today with the Ministry of Health, we’re strengthening that connection between awareness and action,” he said.

Mr Smith said One Communications would this year team up with the Ministry of Health to “amplify information” about available screening services, raise awareness about health and PSA testing and encourage men to speak with health care professionals so that they could take their health more seriously. “It’s not enough for us to tell someone, go get screened. We must also help them understand where screening is available, address the fear and uncertainty that cause people to delay seeking care and wherever we can, we must help remove some of those practical barriers that stand in the way,” he said. 

One Communications also plans to provide screening and mammogram vouchers to help persons access services they needs and work alongside non-governmental organisations such as Champions of Hope, Cancer Institute of Guyana, Periwinkle Club, Giving Hope Foundation, Cancer Foundation, Beacon Foundation, Recover Guyana and the Guyana Cancer Society to support their efforts to educate, advocate and provide care across Guyana.

Through government’s voucher programme over the last two years, he said 4,000 of the 24,000 tested persons were HPV positive and since then they had been taken in for treatment.

Plugging the need for more persons to be screened for prostate cancer, he said the 137 new cases so far for 2026 was “relatively high”. He attributed that detection rate to the “proactive” testing programme that government was also offering through vouchers in collaboration with private laboratories. “Before we used to see a lot of people coming in when it’s too late, but we are changing that now because we are diagnosing people earlier,” he said. 

The Health Minister also called on the NGOs to use their networks to take persons for screening.

“I want people to understand that about five years ago when I started in this ministry, not a lot was happening with cancer. But we are trying to change that because we know that cancer is one of the things that people would die from, and we need to change that outcome,” he said.