Senators share family’s battle with breast cancer

Two senators delivered emotional personal accounts in the Upper House on Friday as they reflected on how breast cancer has affected their own families, using their experiences to highlight the urgent need for greater screening and early detection across Jamaica.

Government senator and medical doctor Elon Thompson opened the discussion as he delivered a motion on the adjournment, revealing that three of his aunts were diagnosed with breast cancer and that two of them ultimately lost their battle with the disease.

“Before I speak as a senator, or as a doctor, permit me to speak as a nephew,” Thompson told fellow senators.

He explained that two of his father’s sisters from Cornpiece Settlement in Hayes, Clarendon, were diagnosed with breast cancer. His mother’s youngest sibling, who lived in the United States, also received the devastating diagnosis.

“Three aunts. Three women from one family. Two of them are no longer with us,” he said.

“I have sat with my family through the waiting, the treatment, and the grief. And I have noticed something that every Jamaican family touched by this disease will recognise: the question is never only ‘why her?’ It is ‘could it have been found sooner?’ “

Urging Jamaicans not to mistake awareness for action, Thompson argued that the country must move beyond symbolic support.

“October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Across this country, our buildings, our offices and our churches are turning pink. And that is good. But I want to say plainly, at the outset that pink is not a policy. Ribbons do not read mammograms. Awareness must now become access,” he said.

His contribution prompted Opposition Senator Kisha Anderson to share her own family’s experience with the disease.

“A few years ago, both my mother-in-law and the caregiver for my children, who I consider part of my family, she helped to raise my children, were both diagnosed with breast cancer at the same time,” Anderson said.

Unlike Thompson’s family, both women survived.

“And, thankfully, they’re both here still with us, but they’re with us because of early detection,” she added.

The opposition senator said their survival underscored the difference that timely screening can make, while acknowledging that many Jamaican women do not have the same access to early diagnosis.

Anderson pointed to the continued burden of breast cancer in Jamaica, noting that it remains the most common cancer affecting women and the leading cause of cancer-related deaths among them.

“The risk is real,” she warned.

Thompson told the Senate on Friday that approximately 40 per cent of Jamaican women diagnosed with breast cancer present with locally advanced disease, underscoring the need for a more coordinated approach to early detection.

“Mr President, that is not a biology problem. That is an access problem,” he said, calling for a national, organised breast cancer screening programme to ensure women can access screening and receive timely follow-up when abnormalities are detected.

According to figures from the Global Cancer Observatory cited by Thompson, Jamaica recorded 1,327 new cases of breast cancer among women in 2022, with approximately 684 deaths. Breast cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death among Jamaican women.

“That is close to two women every single day,” he said, adding that “behind every number is an aunt, a mother, a sister, a daughter …”.