Breast cancer screens for south and west

LONG-AWAITED breast screening facilities for the west and south of the country took another step forward yesterday with an advertisement for mammography equipment for Cork and Galway.

BreastCheck, the National Breast Screening Programme, has given suitable contractors until January 2007 to submit expressions of interest for the breast screening and assessment equipment and said it is very much on target to have the service up and running in the west and south by September 2007.

That will be more than seven years after free breast screening for women aged 50-64 was first rolled out in the east of the country.