A Report on the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) Testing Events which took place at Twickenham and Harrow submitted by W Bro Ivan Chu

Following the direction from R W Bro Peter R A Baker, W Bro Ivan Chu was tasked to work with the CHAPS charity organisation which offered to carry out the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) tests for members of the Province of Middlesex.

In the meantime, the Middlesex Masonic Charity agreed to fund up to 600 places, amounting to £12,000 in order that the service provided would be completely free to members of Middlesex Province, who wished to take part.

These PSA testing events took place on Saturdays the 8th and 15th January 2022, after extensive communication with the brethren through Mailchimp and poster displays at each of the Masonic Centres.

A thanks is due to the Provincial Communication Team for the support and assistance in printing and distributing the posters as well as sending repeated Mailchimp communications to the brethren for initial information and also for reminders.

THE TEST –

With the assistance from 12 Provincial Grand Stewards from both PMK Lodge and Chapter, these events went smoothly over a period of 4 hours at each Centre.

The effort made by all the Stewards were much appreciated as there was barely time for respite in between.

Arrangements were made to enable up to 19 participants to have their blood samples taken in every 15 minutes.

Besides getting the participants to register and sign consent forms, Mr Chris Booth, Clinical Director of CHAPS and former Consultant Urologist, gave a short talk to all the participants prior to seeing the phlebotomists.

For those who had not booked themselves prior to the event for various reasons, Bro Ivan used his laptop in conjunction with the use of the printer in the Centre Offices in order to ensure that no one should miss the event.

The assistance and support from both Centre Managers and their co-workers in organising the furniture, the use of the computer/printer as well as the provision of refreshment, was very much appreciated.

(front row) Frank Tiller, David Pearson, 4 Phlebotomists, Ivan Chu, Marek Majewski, (back row) Nick Reay, Gary Earley, David Smith, Tej Sehmbi, Chris Booth (retired Consultant Urologist)

Despite poor weather conditions on the first Saturday and the Covid Pandemic in general, there were 214 participants at Twickenham and 259 at Harrow.

The actual number of bookings was in the region of 500+.

However, as the result of the recent outbreak of the Omicron variant and for various other reasons, some brethren had either cancelled their bookings on the day, or did not turn up.

In fact, it was un-certain until the very last minute whether the government might have imposed new restrictions which may have jeopardise the events all together.

A similar Prostate Screening took place over five years ago where there were 538 participants.

However, there were more members within the Province at that time and the screening took place during a summer month.

GREEN, AMBER, RED –

As the results would take about a week to process, the initial indication was that 188 brethren received green letters, 6 had amber letters and 11 red letters amongst those who participated in the first (Twickenham) event.

9 results were still being processed at the time of this report.

There is no better way to underline the importance of the PSA tests than by noting that so far, 11 brethren received red letters, meaning further investigation of their prostate was required.

CHAPS will communicate directly with all the participants regarding the remaining results and advice will be given to them accordingly.

A final report regarding the statistics will also be provided to the members of the Executive Team for information and consideration.

The results from the Harrow testing will arrive within a few more days.

Ed: There is no doubt that this was a wonderful opportunity for the brethren of Middlesex to participate in this Prostate Screening which should be a regular part of ongoing men’s health checks.

Many of us will know of a brother Mason who has had the dreaded Prostate cancer.

I am sure that those who took part and were involved with the organisation and stewarding on the day will know that it was a job well done.

A huge thanks to the Middlesex Masonic Charity for their amazing generosity in making this possible.

– www.chaps.uk.com