Why we need £2.5 million for new breast cancer unit

Today your Worcester News adopts a new campaign to raise £2.5 million for a dedicated Worcestershire Breast Unit that will cut patient waiting times in half.

Charity patron and former patient Susie Coleman urged as many people as possible to get behind the campaign.

The new unit would be in an existing building at 220 Newtown Road, near the Charles Hastings Education Centre in the grounds of the Worcestershire Royal Hospital in Worcester and will vastly improve the experiences of breast cancer sufferers.

Mrs Coleman of Brecon Avenue, Warndon Villages, Worcester, was just 26 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and wants to help improve the quality of patient care for others at a time when they can feel like their whole world has fallen apart.

Patients currently have to sit in cramped waiting rooms, sometimes in narrow corridors, climb up and down stairs and trek between clinics spread out through the main hospital for examinations, mammography and ultrasound scans and biopsies. If prosthetics are needed after surgery they have to be fitted behind a curtain in a busy office.

Mrs Coleman, now aged 31, said the quality of the care she received at the hospital was excellent but she did not know whether she was 'coming or going' because breast care services are spread out across different parts of the hospital and across several floors.

The new unit will be a 'one-stop shop' with all the facilities – the waiting room, consulting rooms, mammograph room, radiological reporting area, theatres for ultrasound and a prosthesis fitting room under one roof.

There will be dedicated parking so patients will not face the added stress of driving around the hospital’s one way system, hunting for a space.

Mrs Coleman, a PE teacher at Ridgeway Middle School, Redditch, said: “People should support this campaign because you don’t know if you or somebody you know will need the support the new breast unit will provide, whether you’re a man or a woman. We can’t do this without the support of the public. This new unit will transform people’s lives and make a difficult time that little bit less stressful.”

Worcester News editor Kevin Ward, who is also a patron of the campaign, said: “This is a vital appeal. When the unit opens it will transform care for hundreds of breast cancer patients in the county every year. I am sure our readers will do everything they can to help raise the funds needed.”

Mrs Coleman features in a revealing but tasteful calendar launched at the Hindlip Suite at Sixways Stadium at 2pm today.

The theme of the campaign, run by the Worcestershire Hospitals Charitable Trust, is “Everybody Knows Somebody” who has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Mrs Coleman discovered a lump in her breast while she was on holiday in Valencia in Spain, believing initially that it was a cyst, and visited her GP when she got back to the UK.

She was referred to specialists at the Worcestershire Royal Hospital in September 2004 and received the bombshell that she had breast cancer.

She said: “The more tests I had, the more anxious I became. The day I was told I had breast cancer was when I hit rock bottom. My world fell apart around me. My mum felt helpless. We both just fell apart but I stayed positive through the whole thing. I thought, i’m not going to let this get me down. I’m not going to let this thing beat me.”

Once diagnosed she had a lumpectomy in December 2004 and had lymph nodes removed from her arm to reduce any risk of the cancer spreading.

She also had to undergo six months of chemotherapy at Worcestershire Royal Hospital and six weeks of radiotherapy and was placed on the intravenous drug herceptin and continues and the drug tamoxifen.

She said: “Going through chemotherapy was an ordeal because you feel ill all the time. You can’t eat, you’re being sick. It’s like having a hangover and jet lag and serious flu all together. You feel like death warmed up. Sometimes I felt I would rather be dead.”

She married Chris at St Peter’s Church in Droitwich on August 12, 2005, just four weeks after she finished chemotherapy.

Mrs Coleman had to wear a wig because her hair had fallen out and felt physically and emotionally exhausted but says getting married was the best decision she ever made. She said: “All the time I was having chemotherapy, I was planning a wedding, which was a bit mad. Chris has been my rock. He has been so supportive all the way through. He has been amazing really because this affects him too. My dad would tell me, ‘Let’s not forget about Chris’. He was keeping it all together for us.”

Mrs Coleman has now been clear of cancer for five years and the couple plan to start a family within the next 12 months.

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