Thirty-nine women underwent lifesaving surgeries thanks to Project Flamingo for Mandela Day. 

Project Flamingo is a South African non-profit organisation that supports women battling breast cancer in the public healthcare sector.

Project Flamingo CEO and founder, Dr Liana Roodt, said Mandela Day 2025 was a record-breaking year for them from a surgical standpoint. 

“The most surgeries that we’ve done on Mandela Day previously were 35 surgeries. So this year we managed to do 39. We aimed to do 40, but unfortunately, one patient had to be postponed for medical reasons,” Roodt said. 

Surgeries were performed at Groote Schuur Hospital, Tygerberg Hospital, George Regional Hospital, Livingstone Hospital, and Cecilia Makiwane Hospital in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape on Saturday. 

Roodt said that this Mandela Day, they wanted to push themselves once again to do as much as they could in honour of Nelson Mandela, a great man, and they did that. 

“We didn’t make our 40 surgeries, but we came pretty close… but I think we’ve accomplished everything that we set out to accomplish and more,” Roodt said. 

What also made it special was launching the Make Room for Her campaign, to educate people about what else needs to be done in the system besides pushing for more timely surgeries for their breast cancer patients, Roodt explained. There is a need to create space for her in budgets, the theatre, and the clinic. Furthermore, this inclusion should extend to conversations, policy, and various other areas. 

Roodt said Project Flamingo aims to expedite and dignify patient treatment by intervening at each stage of the pathway.

“This year was a testament again to what happens if ordinary South Africans decide they want to come together and they want to do something, because to pull all that number of big surgeries takes tremendous team effort and an incredible commitment from so many people, and to see people once again just coming together,” Roodt said. 

She said that at Groote Schuur Hospital, two patients received mastectomies with reconstruction. 

Roodt said the female surgical ward at Livingstone Hospital was in a dire state. There were no curtains around the bed, no bed linen, and the ward looked quite sad and neglected. 

“Our volunteer team went in there this week and made the ward beautiful. Curtains were hung, bed linen was provided, basins were replaced, mirrors were put up, and it looks like a beautiful, healing and dignified space,” Roodt said. 

“That is something that we haven’t done before, and it’s unique, and I think we’re very proud of it.” 

Breast cancer survivor and Project Flamingo volunteer Megan Jacobs discovered a lump in her right breast in September 2023. She consulted her GP and went for a mammogram and ultrasound. In October 2023, she underwent her first biopsy. In November 2023, at 34, she was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer. 

“It was one of the hardest moments of my life. Although breast cancer runs in my family, it was a shock because I was young. I thought I was living a healthy lifestyle,” Jacobs said. 

She said she leaned on God and had support from her family and fiancée.

Jacobs underwent eight rounds of chemotherapy and decided to have a bilateral mastectomy, but her surgery was a bilateral nipple-sparing mastectomy.

“Through my journey, every follow-up or everything that I do, just waking up every day, is just a reminder of how far I’ve come and that I have been given a second chance.

Last Mandela Day, Jacobs had the first surgery of the day. 

“Project Flamingo gave me hope when I needed it the most. They have held me during the most vulnerable time in my life. They also made it possible for me to have a life-changing surgery,” Jacobs said. 

She said volunteering was like a full circle moment because she could give back and honour the gift she was given. 

“I went to see the patients on Friday, and then I was also at the surgeries yesterday (Saturday),” Jacobs said. 

“Chatting to these patients, I could see myself in them. Sharing my story just gave them peace and hope.

“I feel like I now have some form of purpose, and I’m just so privileged and so honoured to be a part of an organisation that does life-altering surgeries, and you know that helps women in need,” Jacobs said.

thobeka.ngema@inl.co.za

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