Baroness Tessa Jowell yesterday received a standing ovation in the House of Lords after she gave a moving speech about her battle with brain cancer.
Hundreds of peers, including the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, gave the Labour politician a minute-long applause after she called for more cancer treatments to be available on the NHS.
In May last year, Ms Jowell announced she had been diagnosed with a high-grade brain tumour known as glioblastoma.
In a moving speech, she called for more international collaboration in cancer research, saying:
“Less than 2 per cent of cancer research funding in the UK is spent on brain tumours. No vital new drugs have been developed in the last 50 years.
“For what would every cancer patient want? To know that the best, the latest science was being used – wherever in the world it was developed, whoever began it,” she said.
“What else do they want? They need to know they have a community around them – supporting and caring. Being practical and kind.”
“What gives a life meaning is not only how it is lived, but how it draws to a close.”
Let people live well with cancer, not just be dying of it.
Really moving speech by @TessaJowell. pic.twitter.com/lgRjTqMcO9
— Owen Jones? (@OwenJones84) January 25, 2018
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