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Many of us have holidayed in Fiji and been greeted by the ever-smiling women who clean our rooms and serve our food.
In tourist areas, these women are often their family’s sole bread winners, and are paid around $2 an hour.
Visiting the doctor is a rare luxury and a mammogram costs almost a week’s wage, so when breast cancer strikes, it’s often well advanced.
Surgery is primitive compared to Australian standards and post-operative care is non-existent.
Women return to their villages to recover on a straw mat, usually in a house without a bathroom before returning to their chores.
Following a mastectomy, an Australian woman can choose between a breast reconstruction and a prosthetic breast. In Fiji, a woman chooses whether to use a tea towel or an orange.
- Heather Tait
In addition to pain and complications, breast cancer carries a lot of shame for Fijian women who may become reclusive.
Most of us, while enjoying our Fiji holiday, would be oblivious to any of this.
But Robertson General Store owner Heather Tait is the kind of person who digs a bit deeper.
Over many years of visiting Fiji, she spent time getting to know the people working at the resorts.
When a young male worker asked if he could stay with Heather and her husband for a couple of weeks in Australia, she was happy to agree.
During his stay he asked Heather if she knew how much it would cost to buy a prosthetic breast for his sister who had had a mastectomy.
He told Heather his sister had been blowing up a balloon each day to fit beneath her clothes.
Heather began mentioning it to customers who came into her store, and one of them, Kerry Farrell from Wildes Meadow, approached the manufacturer Amonea, who gave Kerrie a “pre-loved” breast.
“When we presented it to our Fijian friend, he burst into tears,” Heather said.
“His sister had three children, and a busy life cleaning, preparing meals and taking the bus to town do the shopping. We heard after he returned there was a great celebration in the village, to see the woman restored.”
This set Heather off on a path to see how more women could be helped.
“A chance conversation with June Lenham from Basin View began a campaign to collect breasts and bras for women in Fiji,” she said.
“June went to her Shoalhaven Breast Cancer Support group and the women began donating.
“Word spread in the Shoalhaven and the Southern Highlands about the women in need in Fiji.”
Heather returned to Fiji to the Sigatoka hospital and fitted several women in one morning with new breast and bras.
After an interview on Radio National’s Life Matters, more donations came in from all over Australia.
“One of my greatest supporters has been Knickerboxers in Nowra who have collected hundreds of bras and donated many new prosthetic bras from their stock,” she said.
She next travelled to Lautoka hospital with Lily De Santis where they fitted 32 women in two days.
“When each woman left the room after her fitting, all we could hear from the waiting room was laughter. We discovered that as each woman came out the others would dance around her, and feel the breasts to see if they could work out which one was real.”
At the hospital, Heather and Lily gave instructions to local nurses who were able to continue fitting donated breast and bras to patients.
Heather returned in November last year, fitting eight more women in Tavua and another ten in Nandi.
Ahead of her next trip in September, Fiji’s
Ministry of Health has placed public notices in newspapers to encourage women in need to register for help.
Already, 100 women have registered.
“Our mission in Fiji is to help women who are never going to be in a financial position to buy a prosthetic breast,” Heather said.
“The women we have fitted were overwhelmed with joy and happiness to see their dignity and comfort restored.”
In a country where most women don’t have the money or access to buy even a normal, everyday bra, specialist, prosthetic bras are completely out of reach.
The South Coast Register and Knickerboxers are throwing out the challenge to local workplaces to help Heather Tait provide mastectomy bras to Fijian women.
For every trip to Fiji, Heather pays for her own airfares and accommodation, and refuses to accept any cash donations, saying only, “it’s the least I can do”.
Rita Sullivan from Knickerboxers first met Heather when June Lenham from the Shoalhaven Breast Cancer Support group asked if she could source any pre-loved prosthetic bras.
Rita has been fitting post mastectomy bras to women on the South Coast and Southern Highlands for many years and has been able to send Heather a large amount of used, pre-loved and excess stock to distribute to women in Fiji.
“Heather is an inspiration,” Rita said. “She is just a small business owner who has taken this on.
“If women don’t have good prosthetics they become unbalanced and this can lead to serious health consequences. It’s not just about appearance.”
Rita too, refuses to accept cash, but is happy for people to purchase gift vouchers from her business, Knickerboxers, in Nowra to pass on to Heather.
Heather can then order prosthetic bras as needed through Knickerboxers for her next trip to Fiji.
Knickerboxers will order and supply all the bras for the wholesale price, with every cent of your donation going directly towards the purchase.
Special “Bras for Fiji” gift vouchers for $20, $50 or $100 can be purchased from Knickerboxers.
We hope all our readers will take a whip around the office - a small donation can dramatically change a woman’s life for the better.
“Heather has built a grass roots charity. She has touched so many more lives, not just the women in Fiji, but women here in the Shoalhaven," Rita said.
