BREAST SCREEN CLINIC BOOST
New city base for service offers more room for life-saving early diagnosis
CANCER diagnosis services for the region will this week receive a major boost, allowing more people to be screened, as the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service officially opens its new permanent home for BreastScreen Queensland.
During the past financial year, more than 15,000 Far North Queenslanders were screened for breast cancer.
The new clinic, which includes more rooms for mammography and ultrasounds, may potentially help save hundreds of lives of people affected with cancer, with 112 Far Northern women diagnosed last year.
A NEW BreastScreen clinic opening in Cairns this week will help boost diagnosis services in the Far North, allowing for more patients to be screened for cancer.
The Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service will officially open the new purpose-built premises of the Cairns BreastScreen service on Wednesday at 116 McLeod St.
BreastScreen Cairns has been without a permanent home, after its lease expired and was not renewed at the Cairns Medical Specialist Centre on Lake St in mid-2016.
The new 790sq m facility has been fitted out to include three mammography rooms, two ultrasound rooms, a mammo procedure room, radiographer workrooms, nurses’ rooms and offices, dedicated screening and assessment waiting areas, and associated staff support facilities.
CHHHS chief executive Clare Douglas said the new fa- cility had been designed to cater for an increased number of clients.
“In the 2017-18 financial year, 15,447 Far North Queensland women attended BreastScreen appointments at either the Cairns clinic or the mobile service,” she said.
“As a result of this screening, 112 of these women were diagnosed with breast cancer.
“The number of women attending BreastScreen is expected to increase every year, so it’s wonderful this new facility includes an extra mammography room, taking the total to three.”
She said the location was easily accessible by public transport and there was plenty of on-site parking.
Women aged between 50 and 74 are strongly recommended to have a mammogram every two years, as 75 per cent of breast cancer diagnoses are in this age group.
Women in their 40s and those aged over 75 are also eligible for the free service every two years.