NEEDLESS CANCER
I intend to be around to raise my children and I have NO intention that they have to watch me battle Young mother left waiting 10 months just to make waiting list for surgery... 2-4 years away
A WOMAN who has been waiting for almost a year to be placed on a waiting list for potentially life-saving surgery to have her breast and ovaries removed says she has given up hope of having more children.
Aisling Drummond, 36, has a cancer-causing gene mutation, but like women with similar conditions, faces an agonising wait of between two and four years for surgery.
Ms Drummond, who has the BRCA2 mutation, sent a letter to the director of the National Cancer Control Programme (NCCP), Professor Risteárd Ó Laoide, on July 21 appealing for an improvement to the waiting times.
She has also issued a formal complaint to the HSE in relation to her case, which she forwarded to Health Minister Stephen Donnelly.
But she said: ‘I’ve had nothing at all [back], just emails saying they’ve acknowledged my letter.’
In her letter, the mother of two details her fear that her two children will watch her grow sick while waiting for surgery.
She wrote: ‘I intend to be around to raise my children, and I have no intention that they will see me needlessly go through treatment for a cancer I know I can prevent.’
Despite being told ten months ago that she would require the surgery to remove her breasts and ovaries, the mother-of-two has not even been placed on a waiting list yet. And she still has no idea when she will be able to even have her first consultation with a surgeon.
Ms Drummond told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘The reply from the NCCP was deflating. The language used basically pitched us against symptomatic cancer patients again. It’s infuriating.’
The HSE last month acknowledged delays for both risk-reducing surgeries and initial tests for the BRCA2 gene were ‘unacceptably high’.
Many women on waitlists for the procedures – and those waiting to be put on the waiting lists – are not able to access vital treatment. Ms Drummond, from Ballydehob, Co. Cork, said the NCCP acknowledged this week that, throughout the pandemic, cancer patients have been ‘prioritised’ and wait times for women with the gene mutation remain ‘unacceptably high’. Women with the BRCA1 mutation have up to a 90% chance of developing breast cancer, while those with the BRCA2 gene have an 85% chance. The risk of ovarian cancer is 46% and 27% respectively. Ms Drummond was diagnosed with the gene in 2015, aged 29. She was told she would need to have her breasts and ovaries removed.
As a result, she decided to start a family so she could have her surgeries as soon as possible.
She told the MoS: ‘Me and my husband knew we weren’t going to have the big family we wanted. I went to see the breast team last September, after we had the conversation at home. It’s taken five years to have our two children, we thought, so we’re not willing to push my surgeries back any further.
‘I’m sitting here having made the completely horrific decision to not have any more children, in order to be alive and safe for the children I’ve already brought into the world, just to be told that actually, I’ll be looking at least two years once I’m on the waitlist.
‘I’m getting emotional. We’re not going to have any more kids based on a timeline that they’ve put in place for my life, and now they’ve decided that it’s going to be another two years. It’s put women in a situation where they build themselves up to make brave decisions and then pull them all out from underneath us. It’s really tough.’
Ms Drummond, who is a BRCA peer supporter for the Marie Keating Foundation charity, said she fears women less vocal than her are being even more neglected. She told the MoS: ‘These people know me. I’m an advocate, I’m involved, I’ve had a seat at the table with the NCCP, I speak publicly, and I’m still not getting good care.
‘I wonder how they are treating women who don’t have a voice or can’t stand up for themselves.
‘There’s a cohort of women who are going to get a breast cancer diagnosis and subsequently get their BRCA results.’
A HSE spokeswoman said: ‘The NCCP is in direct contact with the patient and it would not be appropriate to comment further on this. The NCCP, in discussion with the HSE’s Chief Clinical Officer, is working with colleagues in the Department of Health, the HSE’s Acute Hospitals Division and HSE Surgical Programme to coordinate a proactive response to the care needs for people with a BRCA gene alteration.’
‘I need to be alive and safe for my children’
‘They’ve decided it will be two more years’