Kwanele Asante speaks at the UN about patient experience — TimesLIVE

South African lawyer and bioethicist Kwanele Asante spoke in New York, United States, at the UN General Assembly in September 2025 about the experience of living with noncommunicable diseases and mental health conditions. She was selected to address the global meeting on noncommunicable diseases and mental health on behalf of people with such experience.

As TimesLIVE reports, for two decades Asante has urged local and international health institutions to take into account the views of the people for whom their programmes and policies are intended.

Treatment experience

At the age of 37, Asante was diagnosed with breast cancer. After chemotherapy sessions, she experienced a rapid heartbeat. After reading that some drugs could damage the heart, she consulted a doctor. She was later diagnosed with chemotherapy-induced cardiomyopathy.

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Asante does not believe that the definition “breast cancer survivor” fully describes her condition. She stresses that people do not perceive the healthcare system as a collection of separate programmes for different diagnoses. According to her, she is undergoing long-term treatment for chemotherapy-related congestive heart failure, bipolar disorder, anxiety and functional neurological disorder.

Patient advocacy

The article describes Asante as one of Africa’s prominent representatives of people living with noncommunicable diseases and mental health conditions. In 2009, she founded the BreastSens organisation.

After returning from New York, Asante temporarily stepped back from activism because of new health problems. She was urgently hospitalised for surgery to remove an inflamed appendix and spent 19 days in hospital.