Thread by SanFranDan.
FULL TITLE: The breast cancer patients TOO OLD to save: Thousands are being denied surgery by 'ageist'
Mastectomy is the most effective treatment
Elderly women are being denied life-saving breast cancer surgery that is routinely given to younger patients, alarming research reveals.
Some doctors look at a patient’s age in their notes – and decide on a treatment plan before they have even met them, experts warn.
Their study, which provides evidence of ageism in the Health Service, found that 90 per cent of breast cancer patients aged 30-50 are offered surgery to remove tumours, compared with 70 per cent of those in their seventies.
Even women in their 50s are less likely than younger patients to have an operation.
Cancer specialist Dr Mick Peake said: ‘I’ve seen evidence of ageism when doctors are approaching the issue. Some take age as disproportionate evidence, often when they’ve never even met the patient.
‘I’d like patients and relatives to bang their fists on the table and say, “Why aren’t we getting this treatment?”,’ added Dr Peake, of the National Cancer Intelligence Network, which carried out the research.
An operation to remove part or all of the breast is the most effective treatment for breast cancer.
Patients are only offered chemotherapy or radiotherapy if the cancer has spread to such an extent that surgery is impossible.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Thread by me.
Karen Royle’s memories of the last precious hours with her cherished mother Rona are far from the serene, comforting images that she had hoped for.
Before arriving in Zurich, Karen, 51, had envisaged a pretty Swiss chalet, with perhaps a view of the Alps — ‘just like the pictures in the book Heidi, which I’d loved as a child’.
But the Dignitas ‘apartment’ at No 84 Gertrudestrasse, where 74-year-old Rona chose to end her life rather than succumb further to the ravages of Motor Neurone Disease (MND), bore no comparison to the picture-postcard tranquility her family had imagined.
The image Karen and her partner David Sweetman cannot erase from their minds is of a ‘blue tin shed’ on a barren industrial estate, with no views, just a scrubby patch of garden littered with cigarette butts.
Inside, the prefabricated structure was equally spartan, with no decorations apart from two roses, an angel-shaped candle and a silver-winged candle holder that the Royles, at Rona’s request, had brought with them.
‘That vision of what was little more than a blue tin shed will stay with me for the rest of my life,’ says David, a decorator.
‘It reminded me of a gas chamber. I felt like I was taking Rona to her execution.
‘When the taxi turned into that industrial estate, we were so horrified I just wanted to turn straight round and drive away. The only thing that stopped us was Rona’s determination to go through with it. I kept asking her: “Rona, are you sure about this?” But she never wavered. To this day, though, I can’t help but feel guilty for taking her there.’
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...