Breast Screening Australia has reported that breast screening services are at ‘Overload‘
The program aims to achieve a participation rate of 70% among women aged 50-69 years. At present, the program is screening 56.9% of women in this age group. However it seems that with some younger prominent Australian women having publicised battles with breast cancer it seems many younger women are utilising the screening services limiting the amount of women in the more ‘at risk’ age group to participate.
It doesn’t rate a mention in the Breast screening Australia stats page or Evaluation Report, however The Australian newspaper report states:
Participation rates are lowest among indigenous and migrant women, women in remote areas, and, surprisingly, women living in major cities.
Lets look at a small sub group. Indigenous women living in remote communities. The Breast Screen bus with all it’s equipment does not leave the bitumen. A remote community, or group of communities may have a couple of hundred women in the at risk category.
There is not enough accommodation in the small community at the end of the bitumen road, and many do not want to stop in a community with alcohol. To get all these women into ‘civilisation’ means running a bus shuttle service over rough dirt roads, setting up and manning a temporary camp and setting up internal shuttles within the communities to transport the women to meeting point.
Hiring buses to work on dirt roads is not a cheap business.
In other areas it may be water, with people living on islands in Torres Strait that prevents them accessing services.
It is logistically and financially very difficult for remote women to reach the mobile breast screening service
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