The news that a relatively young 37-year-old Aussie superstar like Kylie Minogue had breast cancer and was due to be operated, spread like wildfire last week. I do think it was very brave of her to make the truth publicly known. She could have easily said she needed treatment for anything, but for a superstar whose fame rests as much on her perfectly toned and often scantily clad body (with none of the tonnes of flab we see bulging out from so many of our local babes!) as anything else, breast cancer can be a pretty damning prognosis.

It’s the cancer most of us women fear the most, not least because of its potential effect on our shape, though thankfully today many, many women are very successfully treated without the need for the radical surgery that was the norm in the past.

It was brave of her too to be honest and set an example to us all, because hopefully it will encourage more of us to have a mammogram on a regular basis, at least after age 40 and even before then perhaps. I really do think that with the high incidence of the disease locally that there should be a centralised system, as there is with the jabs for our kids, that reminds women to have a mammogram after a certain age, and to be reminded to have one every couple of years after that. There have been countless articles here about the subject, usually one politician berating the other for not doing something about the problem.

One radiographer I spoke to said the reason behind this high incidence locally could be the fact that Malta is one small gene pool, and obviously women who have mothers or relatives who have had breast cancer are the most prone, and should check themselves out most often. I really do think we need a database of all the women who have a relative who has had this disease. If we can’t screen the whole nation over 40, we should at least be having free screening for those women who are most at risk.

Political style writing from politicians though seems to have no effect on the public whatsoever, because even the minority who read articles are totally switched off to that kind of politically biased writing and, unfortunately, important subjects are often shelved just because a politician or his or her opponent in opposition is handling the subject. When was the last time a great big debate was initiated by any politician who writes columns? It’s rare, partly because politicians are not really free to write what they really feel, but also because we know they are not free and so take their writing even less seriously.

But we do need a national screening programme here. The friends I have in the UK and in France who have experienced this type of cancer have all found out due to a screening programme of sorts. In the area of France where a good friend of mine lives they are screening all women at 40, and although the news was a terrible shock, early diagnoses means she has a very good prognosis. And there is humour in this, with one French hospital who was treating her actually serving a meal and Bordeaux wine after one of the treatment sessions! Only in France I guess.

Now, with Kylie telling us all, a glut of women will suddenly go forward and have a mammogram, but it will generally be women with the time, women with the money or women with the intelligence to realise that this is a hell of a lot more important than much of the other rubbish we spend so much money on, from weekly visits for a blow dry, to spending hours and money on this new fad for nail extensions which I abhor with a passion, as do many men incidentally.

However, many women would be hard pressed to find the money to go for a mammogram. Worse, in this society particularly, where we revere women, be they mums or wives who give up everything for their kids and hubbies, there is an even bigger cultural barrier to break. These women, particularly the stay-at-home ones that the Church is always praising (unlike mums who work outside the home who are just about tolerated if they work because they have to!) are simply not going to have a mammogram unless they are cajoled into doing so. They have spent their lives in the service of others (i.e. hubby, kids and sometimes even ageing parents) and simply do not look after themselves as they should. Governments therefore, of any political colour, have a direct responsibility in this area, not only to educate but to set up systems to ensure less women die from breast cancer because it is diagnosed earlier.

Kylie’s courage should give some of us a prod to look after ourselves and have a mammogram. Those who won’t take care of themselves must be prodded to do so via a state run national screening programme. These are the kind of commitments I would like to see in a Constitution – a commitment to put the health of the nation before any other consideration, whatever the political colour, whatever the policies of the government of the day.