Up to 65 women dying each year over breast screening failure

AROUND 65 women are dying from breast cancer each year because the Government has failed to fully implement a national screening programme, it was claimed yesterday.

Opposition leaders, doctors and hospital executives last night criticised the five-year delay in offering such a service in the south and west.

Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death among Irishwomen with up to 650 deaths a year. The screening programme, BreastCheck, which has been running in Dublin, the midlands and northeast for five years, aims to cut these deaths by 20%.

But the Department of Finance is delaying the expansion of the €22 million scheme as it is does not want to commit to a doubling of the project’s budget, a BreastCheck source claimed last night.

Plans to expand the service to the south and west were announced by former Health Minister Micheál Martin in March 2003. Then it was estimated that the service would be available by late 2005. However, the Department of Health now says a likely target date is 2007, but the opposition fears it will take longer.

Under the BreastCheck scheme, free breast X-rays are offered to healthy women so that cancerous growths can be detected before they can be felt.

An All-Ireland cancer report published in recent months showed that deaths from breast cancer have fallen by one-fifth in the North, but remain the same in the Republic because the scheme does not adequately provide for women in the south and west.

“This project is working very successfully elsewhere and is proven to save lives and so I can’t understand why there is such a delay,” said Cork University Hospital consultant medical oncologist Seamus O’Reilly.

“Those who are holding it up have a moral responsibility to get it in operation. If I behaved in this way, I would be struck off. It’s a moral disgrace.”

Mayo Independent TD Dr Jerry Cowley said: “At a conservative estimate, 65 women are dying each year in the west and south from cancers that could be prevented.”

A Department of Health spokesman said last night that it was hoped that a further expansion of the service will be approved in the context of capital funding for next year.

“Discussions are ongoing with the Department of Finance. The Tánaiste (Health Minister Mary Harney) is fully committed to the project and sees no reason why is should not be operational in 2007,” a spokesman said.

A spokesman for the Department of Finance said that it was up to the Department of Health to prioritise its projects.