Monday is National Cancer Wellness Awareness Day and staff at the West Island Cancer Wellness Centre (WICWC) in Kirkland, a Montreal suburb, are marking the day by reflecting on their own contributions to patients and their families.
One of the reasons medical student Evano Maggio decided to volunteer at WICWC was to learn the importance of treating patients’ emotional well-being, but his other motivation for going there is more personal.
“I actually had a family member who had breast cancer a couple of years ago,” he told Global News, “and she was a participant here.”
He said his relative was kept busy with activities for more than a year, things that made a big difference in her well-being.
“She was doing different types of classes,” he recalled. “They offer massages, different types of yoga classes, counselling, financial classes, so many different types of things.”
That is exactly what founder and executive director Debbie Magwood wants to hear. She stresses the importance of wellness – psycho-social support – in treating cancer.
Magwood, a psychologist, opened the centre 15 years ago Monday and points out that while there are many resources to treat the disease itself, there are still many gaps in care.
“There are so many other different components involved when you get cancer,” she said. “There’s social issues, there’s financial concerns, physical, emotional, mental, systemic, and these are what we call the pillars of wellness.”
She knows some of these concerns firsthand, having survived cancer herself. She says during treatment she could find nothing that met her needs.
“We need to have a place where people can learn, no matter their trajectory, where they can find some peace in what they’re experiencing, become empowered,” she stressed.
The WICWC spearheaded the initiative to create National Cancer Wellness Awareness Day, now being observed for a fifth year.
Volunteers observe that the centre creates a community for cancer patients who often self-isolate.
“It provides a safe place for people to come and share, through activities, but always sharing with people,” noted Michel Harpin, a volunteer who had cancer before he even knew about WICWC.
Now he leads a monthly 90-minute peer support for participants at the centre with fellow survivor Olga Munari, who points out that their role is to just be there for participants.
“Because when you have cancer, you need to talk to people that have gone through it just to listen – no judgement,” she said.
All the services at the centre are free.
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