This article is from page 6 of the 2007-12-11 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 6 JPG
A CLARE politician has vowed to go back to the streets to register the anger of women in the mid-west who may not be able to avail of the life- saving Breastcheck service in Clare or Limerick until 2009.
While eligible women can travel to Cork as of last week, mid-west TD, Labour Spokesperson on Health, Deputy Jan O’Sullivan has revealed there will be a two-year delay in roll- ing out the service here.
And Labour Councillor Paschal
Fitzgerald has pledged to go back on the streets of Clare to collect more signatures to add to the thousands he has already handed in at the Dail de- manding the service.
“Despite the news that the service will be available in Cork, it is still extremely disappointing that all eli- gible women in the greater mid-west will not be called for a screening service until the end of 2009,” Depu- ty O’Sullivan said.
Cllr Fitzgerald said that he and party colleagues “stood on _ the streets and collected thousands of
signatures calling for this service to be available in Clare and we will do ime: hex-0 00 ae
He continued, “The Government is ignoring the people of the mid-west. Broken promises are one thing but people’s lives are at risk here.”
The Breastcheck programme pro- vides a screening service for women aged between 50 and 64.
Since its inception, there has been an 80 per cent uptake by women of- fered the service to attend for screen- betes
Statistics have proven that where
a screening service 1S in operation, deaths caused by breast cancer have considerably reduced due to early de- tection.
The National Cancer Screening service spokeswoman could not say precisely when women from Clare might be called to avail of the serv- ice but said that the service is being rolled out as quickly as possible.
Deputy O’Sullivan welcomed the announcement that breast screening for eligible women started in Cork from last week, despite a delay of nearly five years since it was first
promised.
“T, along with my party colleagues, have been campaigning for a number of years to have the national free breast-screening programme extend- ed to the south and western parts of the country.
“While I welcome the announce- ment which will allow women throughout the mid-west to avail of the screening programme in Cork, the full roll-out of this vital service throughout the country must be pro- eressed without further unacceptable delays,” she said.