An update from Mavis Nye on World Cancer Day 2022

The Mavis Nye Foundation was established as a registered charity in 2017. In 2021 the charity’s founder, Dr Mavis Nye, was named SHP’s Most Influential person in health and safety and in the Queen’s Birthday Honours she was awarded the BEM for service to people with mesothelioma.

Today on World Cancer Day 2022, Mavis updates us on the work of the Foundation and her plans for the coming year.

I set up the charity following my terminal diagnosis with mesothelioma, an asbestos related cancer. When I was diagnosed in 2009, the prognosis couldn’t have been worse yet thanks to treatment and taking part in treatment trials I am here today.

To date, the Foundation has supported numerous individuals and organisations including IOSH’s successful No Time to Lose (NTTL) campaign which focuses on occupational cancers. Right from my diagnosis, my ambition was for East Kent to have a specialised and dedicated nurse for mesothelioma patients. I’m proud to say that the Foundation has been able to fund a dedicated mesothelioma nurse for several years; it makes a huge difference to people in the East Kent area.

And now, in 2022, the Mavis Nye Foundation along with HASAG (an asbestos disease support charity) has made its first large purchase of highly specialised machinery. The equipment is truly ground-breaking and will allow patients with cancers known as peritoneal metastases to undergo potentially life-saving treatment.

The machinery allows a minimally invasive process called pressurised intraperitoneal aerosol chemotherapy (PIPAC). Using laparoscopy, concentrated chemotherapy treatment can directly enter the abdomen as an aerosol. The PIPAC machinery we’ve bought will be installed at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust this year with trials expected to begin on patients soon.

In September I will be fundraising again for Run for Meso which is led by ‘mesowarrior’?Angie Mackrell who lost her father to the disease. And on 1st July DSK Environmental is sponsoring the Foundation’s participation in Mesothelioma Action Day. On that day we are encouraging organisations and individuals around the UK to raise awareness of mesothelioma by lighting up their buildings in blue. Will you light up yours? Let me know! [email protected]

You can find out more about the Foundation and donate on the website.

Mavis, Chief Executive of the Mavis Nye Foundation