27 April 2006

A new purpose built breast clinic in Whangarei

A new purpose built breast clinic in Whangarei will improve access to breast screening and assessment services for Northland women said Minister of Health Pete Hodgson.

Pete Hodgson toured the clinic today, which is currently being built for Northland District Health Board and Waitemata District Health Board.

"From July Northland women will not have to travel to Auckland. Within the first 12 months 4,600 women are expected to receive their free mammograms," said Pete Hodgson.

Overall, the breast screening programme continues to expand and during the first 20 months since the extension of the age range, more than 226,683 women have been screened.

"This represents an enormous amount of work being undertaken by the eight lead providers and their staff throughout the country".

BreastScreen Aotearoa (BSA) lead providers are continuing to increase screening capacity and improve service delivery to women in their regions. The breast clinic in Whangarei will help to improve access to follow up services for women in the region. BreastScreen Counties Manukau (BSCM) formally opened in February this year, BreastScreen Coast to Coast (Palmerston North) was opened in March, the planned new facilities for BreastScreen Central (Lower Hutt) is to be completed in October and BreastScreen Health Care (Dunedin) by the end of the year.

To increase services for women in rural areas, three new mobile screening units are being built which will be launched later in the year and will bring the total number of units travelling the country to ten.

ENDS

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