Women on pill ‘have 20% higher risk of breast cancer’
MENTAL HEALTH APPOINTMENTS
VASCULAR SURGERY waiting times revealed a further 10 people faced a three-year wait at the Royal.
Mr Beggs said: “These figures are frightening.
“While it has been known for some time that Northern Ireland
days is in the midst of its worst ever waiting times crisis, these figures are on a totally new scale.
“It is downright cruel that these patients have been forced to wait for so long, with many no doubt in debilitating pain and discomfort.
“The fact that there are 10 patients waiting for over threeand-a-half years for a neurological appointment is particularly tragic.
“There will likely be hundreds more waiting just a few weeks less.”
Mr Beggs said that as well as an increased risk of patients’ health deteriorating, long waiting lists heaped pressure on overworked GPs and emergency
1,095
1,330 days departments. He added: “Only last year, the maximum waiting time was a more tolerable target of 18 weeks when the then DUP/ SF Executive increased it in a failed and disturbing attempt to reduce negative headlines in the media.
“I’m disappointed that these figures only came to light after a Freedom of Information request.
“But at least with them now in the open I hope these patients who have been waiting for so long will receive the level of care that they deserve.”
A spokesperson for the Belfast Trust “fully acknowledged” that their hospital waiting times were too long in some areas.
She added: “We are very sorry
days)
(2,086 that any patient should have to wait for treatment.
“Like all trusts across Northern Ireland, there is an acknowledgement that demand for services exceeds our capacity to deliver.
“While additional investment, if available, would allow us to bring waiting lists down in the short to medium-term, the only long-term answer will come through reforming the health service as set out in Delivering Together.
“We continue to review opportunities with our own staff and with the Health and Social Care Board to maximise the capacity available to us to treat patients on our waiting lists.” WOMEN who use hormonal contraceptives have a 20% higher risk of breast cancer than those who don’t, major research revealed yesterday.
The study is said to be the largest study of its kind ever conducted on breast cancer and hormonal contraception such as the combined pill, the progesterone-only pill and non-oral products such as the hormone-intrauterine system (IUS).
It followed 1.8m Danish women aged under 50 from 1995 to 2012 to assess breast cancer risk in users of different types of hormonal contraception compared with women who had never used hormonal contraception.
Researchers found that in current and recent users of any type of hormonal contraception, the risk of breast cancer was 20% higher, with 11,517 new cancers detected during the study period.
The research was carried out by Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen, in collaboration with the University of Aberdeen.
However, the study suggested the numbers affected were likely to be low.
Professor Phil Hannaford, who led the research team based in Aberdeen, said: “Breast cancer is rare in young women.
“In this study, the absolute extra risk of breast cancer associated with use of hormonal contraception among all women age 15 t0 49 was 1.3 per 10,000 person-years, or one extra breast cancer for every 7,690 women using hormonal contraception for one year.”
The study was published in New England Journal of Medicine.