Rotorua mother’s 15-year fight for breast reduction surgery

For 15 years, Laila Jeffries has been “fighting” to get breast reduction surgery.

The 33-year-old Rotorua mother is “constantly” in pain and cannot run or play sports. She wears bras that are too small for her, leaving her with sores and chafing, because she cannot find a bra big enough at shops, nor afford a custom-made one.

She has bilateral macromastia and her breasts have kept growing as she’s aged, even when she lost weight.

When she was 18, she was an E cup. Now, she is a K cup.

Over the past 15 years, doctors have sent several referrals for breast reduction surgery, all of them declined.

But last year, Waikato Hospital contacted her for a consultation and she was put on the waitlist.

“I cried so much,” she said of the moment she received the news.

“I want to play sports, I want to run around with my kids, I want to go to a bra shop and buy a bra in my size ... I just want to feel normal.”

Laila Jeffries has been "fighting" to get breast reduction surgery for 15 years. Photo / Andrew Warner

Jeffries believed she inherited the condition from a relative.

“I’ve gone up probably eight or nine sizes since my first consultation with the surgeon.”

She said her surgery would reduce her breasts from a size K to “hopefully a small B”.

But due to her condition, her breasts could still grow again.

“With that surgery comes a lot of risks - I may never have nipples, I’ll have no sensation in my breasts or anything like that. It’s such a hard thing to live with that those risks don’t really matter to me. It’s about being able to do things and function properly.”

When she was younger, she thought “everybody wanted big breasts” so hers were the “best things ever”.

“But then I got to a point where they just didn’t stop growing and they just got bigger and heavier.”

She said when she first raised her concerns about her growing breasts with her doctor, she was told breast reduction surgery could be an option for her. She was referred for a consultation at Rotorua Hospital - the first of many appointments that always led to disappointment.

At one early consultation, she was told her Body Mass Index would mean her surgery would be declined, as her BMI classed her as “morbidly obese”. She recalled she was 67kg and told she needed to be 57kg.

She joined a gym to try and lose weight, but continued to be declined for surgery.

“We just kept going, year after year after year.”

Laila Jeffries says getting breast reduction surgery will be "life-changing". Photo / Andrew Warner

In July, she received a text message saying she had a pre-operation assessment at Waikato Hospital.

She called, asking what it was for and was told a doctor there wanted to do a consultation with her for breast reduction surgery.

“He said to me, ‘I was just going through surgery papers and I came across your name, I’ve noticed I’ve seen your name so many times’.

“He measured me, he felt my breasts, he felt my back, he looked up all my records, he saw everything and he said, ‘I don’t know how you have not had this operation’.

“I cried so much and I said to him, ‘I’ve been waiting for just somebody to pick it up’.”

She was put on the waitlist.

Jeffries is due to give birth in June and plans to have the surgery at Waikato Hospital after that.

“It’s going to be life-changing for me.”

Plastic and reconstructive surgeon Dr Brandon Adams, who works in private clinics in Tauranga and Rotorua, told the Rotorua Daily Post he “frequently” saw women of all ages who experienced symptoms from having large breasts.

These included headaches, neck and upper back pain, grooving in the shoulders from straps and rashes underneath their breasts.

“Or just simply the difficulty of having either large or out-of-proportion breasts to one’s body.”

Adams referenced the expense and difficulty for women who could not buy clothing “off the rack” because nothing fit.

Adams, who does both publicly and privately funded surgeries and works alongside two other plastic surgeons at the Da Vinci Clinic in Tauranga, said the three of them would do one breast reduction surgery a week on average.

In his experience: “Almost universally, apart from the context of breast cancer reconstruction, it is extremely difficult for people to get access.”

Adams said the benefit to women who got the surgery was “enormous”.

“The amount of benefit you get over your life from breast reduction, if you’ve got the symptoms I’ve mentioned, is the same benefit that people get over their lives from a hip or a knee replacement.”

Breast reduction also reduced breast cancer risk, he said.

Te Whatu Ora hospital and specialist services for Lakes interim lead Alan Wilson said the organisation understood the frustrations of local people waiting for surgery.

Wilson said breast reduction surgery was not provided at Rotorua Hospital as it was a “particular surgical specialty procedure” undertaken by Waikato Hospital.

“Lakes GPs would refer any local person for consideration for breast reduction surgery to Rotorua Hospital where they would be seen ... and referred to Waikato Hospital as appropriate.”

Wilson said Waikato Hospital staff would consider the referral of anyone from a referring district alongside other patients and based on clinical priority and capacity to benefit.

“There is currently considerable pressure on all planned surgeries and this may affect an individual’s ability to access surgery.”

Te Whatu Ora Lakes encouraged anyone who was unhappy about its services to contact the organisation.

Waikato Hospital has performed an average of 39 breast reduction surgeries per year over the past three years and has 25 patients on the waitlist, a spokesperson said.