Why have age limits? All women should get breast scans
I AM 40 and am being treated for breast cancer. Being a decade too young to have been invited to take part in the NHS breast screening programme — which applies to women aged 50 to 70 — I count myself lucky to have been diagnosed with this disease. I feel sorrow for the women affected by the blunder that meant 450,000 were not invited to their last opportunity to be screened (Mail). But I am angry that this valuable programme stops at 70. While women can still request screening, it is unclear why, when the chances of getting breast cancer increase with age, the invitation to be screened automatically should suddenly stop at 70. Is it because women retire from work at 67 and being no longer able to bear children, our use to this patriarchal dominated society is over and so is our value? The #MeToo campaign is long overdue and needs to expand to give equality to women of all ages, especially when it comes to our health. Women do not deserve to be written off at 70. My breast cancer is BRCA2 triple negative, which means I should have been having yearly checks and preventative surgery, but this genetic issue was not known before my diagnosis. I am having 16 sessions of chemotherapy followed by a double mastectomy and reconstruction. It sucks being diagnosed at 40, but I’ve been overwhelmed by the support from my family and I consider myself lucky.
LOUISE BEN-NATHAN, London W5.