AILEEN ANTOLIN, a Registered Nurse, is a wife, mother, and the current Program Development Officer of the Philippine Foundation for Breast Care Inc. (Kasuso Foundation). It is as a daughter, however, that her crusade for breast cancer patients began.
In 2008, she caught sight of her mother’s discolored and misshapen breast. After being diagnosed and treated, her mother beat the disease but would later succumb to other causes. It was during her mother’s journey that Aileen saw the toll it took on her mom, especially with the latter’s meager resources as a retired public school teacher.
This prompted Aileen to volunteer at the Kasuso Foundation, where she immediately helped launch an effective and urgent plan of action that eventually served to raise even greater awareness of the cause. She was part of the campaign to give a face to breast cancer and, in her words, the move to “corporate-ize” the foundation.
This campaign included mounting a photo exhibit depicting A Day in the Life of 23 breast cancer patients, ordinary women that patients and the public alike can relate to, a launch of the Kasuso Foundation logo, and creating a Facebook page for the organization.
They were rewarded by the transformation of the once-dismal condition of the Foundation’s all in-one structure into a well-appointed headquarters where patients can wait for their free treatments and consultation in air-conditioned comfort. Partitions were created to give patients, in various stages of the disease, some privacy. Four chemo chairs were installed, with two oncologists on board and PPE was provided for all personnel ministering to the needs of the patients.
Aileen and her colleagues were fortunate to have the steadfast support of companies like The Peninsula Manila, Human Nature, and Roche, and individuals like broadcast personality Ogie Diaz, who continue to help advance the Kasuso advocacy in a country where, as Aileen points out, we have the POOREST RANKING in terms of EARLY DETECTION. Sometimes, the volunteers would be hindered in their attempts to reach out to barangays from North to South by patients who REFUSE TREATMENT even when they are already at a stage when the symptoms are visible.
As the current Program Development Officer of the Kasuso Foundation, Aileen says that the Foundation’s immediate goal is to institutionalize the mammogram by tapping the LGUs and probable sponsors.
Progress in managing the disease that once threatened her mother’s life entails razor-sharp focus and unwavering energy, but the Kasuso Foundation is fueled by the dedicated service and full commitment of its workers and leaders like Aileen.
For her, Breast Cancer should be viewed not merely as a health issue, but as a disease impacting the whole nation.
She hopes to see the day when health is no longer a privilege, but a right. She longs for a time when Filipino women will no longer die from breast cancer due to poverty.
Aileen Antolin, RN continues to search for volunteers who have the same impassioned principle that “Breast health is an everyday responsibility of BOTH the women and the men.” A philosophy that is needed to achieve the Foundation’s goal is to implement a patient navigation system that goes the whole mile with the patient, “from lump to survivorship.”
Every patient fighting for her life needs all the support and strength from an army that has the mind and heart to help her win the battle.
The person who gave her testimonial and/or shared her image and/or likeness in these videos did so freely and voluntarily. All rights reserved 2022