“You have to think if the modern technology was around would it have reoccurred?” Alison Rosen reflected as she spoke movingly about losing her mother to breast cancer and the campaign she is now leading to buy state-of-the-art equipment to help in the fight against the disease.
Alison is the chief executive of West Herts Hospitals’ Charity which has launched an appeal to raise £200,000 for two Savi Scout surgical guidance systems. These use radar technology to precisely target and remove cancerous tissue.
The Watford Observer and its sister title, the Herts Advertiser, is backing the campaign to buy the equipment at St Albans City Hospital where patients from across West Herts – including the Watford area – are treated for the disease.
To learn more about the appeal and make a donation, click here.
“First of all the need was demonstrably there,” Alison said about deciding to take on the appeal. “It was very clear this was not something the trust were going to pay for because the existing wire technology will work.
“It is not as nearly as good but it will work, so at the moment with the financial position of the trust they were not going to take this project on and it is over and above what the NHS would pay for.
“It is a project that is going to make a real difference and be transformational, so we recognised very quickly that would resonate with the general community and they would want to support it.
“For me personally, my mum had breast cancer so it’s particularly meaningful for me as well.”
- Help us raise £200k and 'make a difference' in fight against breast cancer
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Popular village race to raise money for breast cancer appeal
The charity is holding an 11-mile fundraising walk, the Titty Trail, from Watford General Hospital to the breast unit at St Albans on Sunday, November 3 and Alison will be taking part in memory of her mum, Patricia Rosen, who died in 2008, aged 67.
“She first got breast cancer in around 1985, it came back twice and the third time it came back it had metastasized and it was in her brain and her bones, so that’s why she died,” Alison explained. “She had it for 20-odd years on and off and had periods of good health in the middle.
“I don’t know whether the Savi Scout would have made a difference to her but the fact that it pinpoints things so precisely - if it had been around at the time it would have minimised the chance of reoccurrence - so for me that makes it particularly meaningful.
“I think she had one of the first lumpectomies, she didn’t have a full mastectomy to start with on one side. It came back on the same side ten years later and then on the other side ten years after that. She was treated with radiotherapy, then eventually a double mastectomy and eventually it spread, but she was living with it for a very, very long time. You have to think if the modern technology was around would it have reoccurred?”
The Lord-Lieutenant of Hertfordshire Robert Voss, who is patron of the charity, also has first-hand experience of "this dreadful disease".
He said: “I am pleased to give my wholehearted support to the West Herts Hospitals Charity appeal, to fund two Savi Scout systems for the breast unit at St Albans City Hospital - the very unit where my wife was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer nine months ago.
"By supporting the appeal, and especially the fundraising 'Titty Trail' walk from Watford General to St Albans City Hospital on Sunday, November 3 - the whole community can help with treatment of this dreadful disease for many like my wife.”
Alison's mum was Ashkenzi Jewish, meaning she may have had a gene mutation that can increase the risk of developing breast cancer.
“I don’t know if it was BRCA gene because it was before you got tested,” Alison said. “I only recently had the courage to be tested for the BRCA gene and I don’t have it, so I don’t know if she had it or not and I’ll probably never know.
“But it was in my life for a long time, I was 18 when she first got it and I didn’t have a dad – he died when I was very young – so it was quite a hard thing to cope with as a family member.
“Possibly because of the BRCA gene because I’m Jewish, I also have a lot of friends who have had breast cancer so it’s something that I’m very aware of.
"There is such a big need to help women with breast cancer. So many of them now have been treated, have been cancer-free for a long time and have lived really normal lives, so the things that help people – like the Savi Scout – to address it quickly, for it not to spread and not to come back that’s relevant to so many people."
Having lost a parent to breast cancer and with friends who have also had the disease, Alison wants to reach the £200,000 target as quickly as possible.
However, the charity does not need to reach the full amount before it can buy the first Savi Scout – that can be done once £100,000 has been raised.
“People have asked me how long we want to run the appeal for and I have said until December, which is very ambitious and it may take longer, but the point is I know it’s really needed now, so the sooner we can buy one the bigger difference we can make,” she said.
“It’s not something we want to wait two years to be able to fund because the equipment is really needed now by the unit, so the quicker we can do it the better.”
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