In honor of Nelson Mandela Day, Project Flamingo plans 40 life-saving surgeries

JOHANNESBURG - A non-profit organisation, Project Flamingo is planning to conduct 40 life-saving breast cancer surgeries in celebration of Nelson Mandela day.

Its founder said this will be done across five hospitals in two provinces, including the Eastern and Western Cape.

The 40 women are selected from public health facilities who are already in the system.

They are placed between the Groote Schuur, Tygerberg, George regional, Livingstone and Cecilia Makiwane hospitals.

NPO founder Liana Roodt said one in eight women are affected by breast cancer in their lifetime and this initiative helps reduce the current backlog.

"We are also launching the make room for her campaign, and the reason why we call this make room for her is because we strongly feel that it is critical that we start talking about cancer care in this country differently. That we proactively make room for our patients, in what we speak about, in our budgets, in our policies and we carry that forward with compassion and dignity," said Roodt.