The province announced a plan Tuesday to increase screening for breast cancer by progressively lowering the age for self-referrals from 50 to 40, including a commitment to get to age 45 by the end of 2025.
“Breast cancer has touched the lives of so many people in this province,” Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said in a news release. “As we lower the screening age in Manitoba, it’s critical that the system has what it needs to meet a higher demand.”
CancerCare Manitoba has been working with health system partners to hire more mammography technologists and increase screening appointments for people aged 50 to 74, a government news release said. More breast-screening clinics will be added as targets and staffing requirements are met, Asagwara said.
BREAST CANCER SOCIETY OF CANADA
A woman prepares to receive a mammogram.
“With this change, CancerCare Manitoba’s breast-screening program will be providing more mammograms closer to home and with care to providing culturally sensitive and appropriate services,” CancerCare president and CEO Sri Navaratnam said in the release.
When fully expanded, the breast screening program will nearly double its capacity to more than 80,000 screening mammograms per year, the release said.
“Screening for breast cancer is an important service that can be crucial to ensuring timely diagnosis and treatment for patients,” Dr. Duncan Inglis, a surgeon and the medical director at the Breast Health Centre, which operates under Shared Health, said. “Expanding breast screening to more Manitobans will save lives, and we look forward to working with our partners at CancerCare Manitoba to deliver this service to the people who need them in a timely manner.”
Roblin MLA and Progressive Conservative health critic Kathleen Cook said in an emailed statement that her party has been urging the NDP to take action on women’s health for months.
“And while we welcome this initial step, their vague promise to ‘eventually lower the screening age to 40’ is simply not good enough,” Cook said. “Wait times for screening mammograms in Manitoba today are as high as a year in some parts of Manitoba.”
Survey results released Tuesday by Breast Cancer Canada state 94 per cent of Canadians believe screening should start at age 40. The survey was conducted from Aug. 28 to Aug. 30. The sample size of 1,505 Canadians comprised 771 females and 734 males.
fpcity@freepress.mb.ca