Breast Cancer and Return to Work, Europa Donna ‘helps ease reintegration’

“Unfortunately, more and more often, breast cancer It appears at a young age and bursts into a woman’s life when she is in the midst of her professional activity. So we went into the territory to listen to the patients and hear what their experience was with respect to the world of work, and we found that the rights of the worker are often limiting with respect to the real needs for care that a patient may have over time”. This is what Rosanna D’Antona, president of Europe Womandescribes to Adnkronos the origin of the activities promoted by the association to facilitate the return to work even after a diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer, a topic also addressed from various points of view on the website ‘è tempo di vita’.

As “oncologists also tell us – continues D’Antona – one of the very first questions that the patient asks at the time of diagnosis is: will I be able to continue working afterwards?”. Therefore, alongside the therapeutic path, “it is important to support women so that they can continue, if they wish, to be active on a professional level, also because living an active life from a social and relational point of view is of great help on a psychological level in dealing with the disease. For these reasons in Europa Donna Italia we gave life, about 3 years ago, to ‘TrasformAzione’a project dedicated to patients who want to work and need support in their reintegration process into the professional world. Let us not forget that, thanks to the progress made in research, there are more and more women with breast cancer who maintain a good quality of life and want to continue to feel professionally active, not only because this allows them to regain their financial independence, but also because for many, returning to their profession means returning to life, leaving the sole dimension of being a patient”.

On the topic of returning to work, “from a recent research that we conducted at a national level – continues the president of Europa Donna – we were able to find two types of problems. One concerns the patient and whether or not she feels capable of returning to work and getting back into the game professionally. The other concerns the company, which must be able to accommodate a patient who needs, for example, repeated treatments and check-ups over time, especially in the case of metastatic breast cancer”. Unfortunately, “not all national collective labor agreements are uniform in protecting these aspects. For our part, with ‘TrasformAzione’ we help patients to best activate themselves in the active search for work, from writing the curriculum vitae to managing the interview, but not only: women are also supported in the analysis of their expectations, skills and professional aspirations. The process then includes an interview with an occupational psychologist and knowledge of their rights in the workplace; Participants are also provided with free consultancy from a labour lawyer once a week for a certain number of hours”.

Recently, “to make this opportunity known to more and more patients – adds D’Antona – we have prepared a small video for the waiting rooms of large hospitals, such as the Ieo in Milan, where the Transformation project is explained and how to join. This path has given us a lot of satisfaction up to now. At least 150 women have already benefited from it with very satisfying results, because they have finally gone from a mental state (mindset) of ‘patient’ to that of ‘candidate’, setting in motion a fundamental mechanism of desire and participation in life. It is not a very large number, but together with the international recognition that this project has received – he concludes – it gives us confirmation that today work is a truly important element, complementary to the therapeutic path”. Further information on the topic is available on the website ‘E’ tempo di Vita’, etempodivita.it ) and on Facebook and Instagram channels.