Labour MP Dawn Butler Announces She Has Been Diagnosed With Breast Cancer
2 min read
Labour MP Dawn Butler has announced that she was diagnosed with breast cancer in November 2021, but insists she will make a “full recovery” as the cells were at a “very early stage”.
“Of course, everything stood still as it does when you hear the dreaded C-word – it is a shock but an early diagnosis means that it is something that I will get through and over,” she wrote on Twitter on Monday.
“The NHS has caught my cancer early, the operation was a complete success and I will make a full recovery.”
Labour leader Keir Starmer thanked the MP for her “bravery, strength and determination”. He tweeted: “I am sorry you’re going through this, but know that I, and the whole party, are behind you.”
The MP, who has represented Brent Central since 2015, said she would now “take time off work for my recovery” after undergoing surgery.
She told the BBC that “a mammogram saved my life”, insisting that her cancer “wouldn’t have been discovered” were it not for the routine operation.
Butler added that she feared “a million women” have missed their mammograms because of the pandemic.
"They missed it because of Covid. They estimate there are 9,000 women who are walking around with breast cancer and they don’t know it. There will be women who will die if their breast cancer is not discovered. And needlessly so.”
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