BreastCheck scheme - Delay in screening costing lives

Since breast screening has been proven to cut cancer deaths by 20%, it is an outrage that BreastCheck has not yet been introduced in the South and West.

It is now more than five years after it was introduced to screen women in the rest of the country.

Plans to expand the facilities to the South and West were announced in July 2002, but it has taken since then for the Department of Health to announce that design contracts are to be put out to tender for buildings to be constructed at South Infirmary/Victoria Hospital, Cork, and at University Hospital in Galway.

At this rate it is unlikely the buildings will be ready before late 2007. Three mobile screening units will cover the rest of Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Waterford and Tipperary South Riding, while two mobile screening units will cover Galway, Sligo, Roscommon, Donegal, Mayo, Leitrim, Clare and Tipperary North Riding.

Such delays are intolerable because they amount to gambling with the lives of hundreds of Irish women annually. All healthy women, aged 50-65, living in these areas will be called for free breast X-rays so cancerous growths that cannot yet be felt can be detected.

It is estimated that screening will allow the early detection of breast cancer in 325 women in the South and West each year.