Surgeon offer free breast cancer ops
THANKS to the kind heart of a city surgeon, women with life- threatening breast cancer, don’t have to wait long for surgery.
Doctor Liana Roodt, has started an NGO project that raises funds so that cancer patients can have the much needed surgery sooner. Roodt, who is a surgeon at Groote Schuur and Tygerberg hospitals, said it was the time that patients had to wait to undergo surgeries that inspired her to start offering free services for women.
She started Project Flamingo with the AmaBele Belles project in 2010, with the hope to not only assist with the hospital system, but mostly to provide quick services for better health care, she said.
“The issue of breast cancer and the number of women affected by it is a massive problem. The important thing when I started this initiative was being able to help the women in urgent need of treatment who endure weeks of waiting for surgery.
“Project Flamingo has succeeded in reducing the waiting time for some patients from 12 weeks to 2-4 weeks at Groote Schuur Hospital, with great support from our pathologists and nurses.
“One of the things that people need to understand is that the long waiting period is not the hospital’s fault, but the system being full, hence Project Flamingo”, she said.
Among other things, the project also provides pamper packs for newly diagnosed patients. They include toiletries, an auxiliary pillow, drain bag and educational material on breast cancer.
The organisation has also made its services available to patients suffering from colorectal cancer.
Roodt said Project Flamingos’ plans for the future included raising funds for Groote Schuur’s Breast and Oncology Unit, which would improve patient care.
She hoped to expand their services to include Tygerberg Hospital. -