Breast Cancer affects more than 55,000 women every year in the UK.
Thousands of these women will undergo mastectomy, either single or double.
And thousands are being given the wrong coloured breast prostheses. 
This situation could be easily rectified and, on their behalf, we demand change.

Mastectomy is an incredibly invasive procedure. One that can further negatively affect a woman's mental health and self-image.

Many of these women will have already lost their hair, everywhere, due to radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy. And with chemotherapy, that's usually ALL of their hair, including the hair on their heads, their eye-lashes, eye-brows, under arm and pubic hair.

So, when a women then loses her breasts through mastectomy, she often feels that she has totally lost ALL femininity.

Following surgery, women are often offered prostheses to mimic the shape of their former breasts, as reconstructive surgery is not usually an option immediately following mastectomy. 

The vast majority of breast prostheses are skin-coloured.
But ONLY if your skin colour is white.
Imagine what that feels like if you're a woman of colour?

You've been through diagnosis, weeks of tests, grief, despair, anger and stress.
You're trying to deal with the terror and the anguish.
You're scared of the disease, scared of the solutions and scared of the future.
You opt for surgery and during recovery, you're handed a pair of white silicon breast prostheses to wear home.

You're already a shadow of your former self.
And now when you look in the mirror or down at yourself, your body is completely unrecognisable. Imagine what this might do to your mental health?

This policy of only sourcing white skin-coloured breast prostheses is a systemic, destructive micro-aggression against women of colour. 
It represents the most heinous of unconscious biases.

Women who are living with breast cancer, women who are fighting for their lives... shouldn't have to fight for their dignity at the same time. 

We do not seek to apportion blame. We are incredibly proud of and grateful for our National Health Service. But what's right is right. And this situation is so wrong, on so many levels.

We demand a change in hospital sourcing policy to ensure that a representative supply of truly skin-coloured breast prostheses is available in every hospital across the UK. Because all women of all colours deserve dignity.

In loving memory of Tanya. We fight this fight for you.