There are fears the decision to no longer offer a mobile breast-screening service in Wanaka will put some women off being checked regularly.
BreastScreen Otago Southland (BSOS) will no longer provide its mobile screening service in Wanaka and will instead direct women to a screening facility in Queenstown. But Wanaka woman Claire O’Connell says it will put her and other women she knew off having the screening done, because they now had to travel to Queenstown.
"Before I could just go about my daily business and it would take me 20 to 25 minutes to book my appointment and get my screening done and there was a lot of flexibility with the appointment.
"Now it’s an hour’s drive to Queenstown and you’ve got to be early, then you could be delayed, so it’s going to be at least a three-hour trip."
The inconvenience of booking a screening would mean many women, particularly those who worked, would no longer make an appointment.
"You hear about how regular breast exams have reduced the number of cases of cancer by x-amount but this is going to put the kibosh on that, in Wanaka at least."
A letter was sent to Mrs O’Connell last year informing her she could book an appointment with the screening bus a year earlier than scheduled because it would not be returning to Wanaka in 2017.
"They didn’t mention at the time it wasn’t coming back at all and even when I rang them, the person who I talked to didn’t even know."
It was symptomatic of how rural health was being treated, she said.
"They’re going to have to monitor that to see if they are still getting the same number of women from here going over for their appointments, because I bet it won’t be the same and then what will they do?"
BreastScreen Otago Southland clinical director Dr Luke Newnham said the changes meant mammography would be available year round, rather than just for 10 weeks every two years.
Initially it would be at a temporary facility, but BSOS planned to open a permanent medical clinic at the same site in two to three years’ time.
BSOS was in the final stage of gaining consents for a fixed mammography screening site in the Southern Lakes district, Dr Newnham said.
Ultimately it was hoped as well as routine screening it may be possible to offer assessment clinics for women recalled from screening for further imaging and to deal with women presenting with breast symptoms.
These women now had to travel to Dunedin and Invercargill, he said.
The decision to upgrade the screening service was driven by population increase and a desire to provide a much better service to a wider area.
Local GPs were informed about the decision to stop the service last year and were also visited by representatives from BSOS.
Wanaka Medical Centre practice manager Jan Gillespie acknowledged Wanaka women now had to travel to Queenstown for their biennial breast screening but added the medical centre were not part of the consultation process.
She encouraged all the centre’s patients who were eligible to continue with breast-screening, because of how important it was.
"We will watch this change with interest and continue to monitor the uptake of mammography for our patients," she said.
- Tim Miller & Kerrie Waterworth
