Free cancer screening service for Stirling City women

A free breast cancer screening service for women in the City of Stirling area will begin operating by the end of the year.

Health Minister Keith Wilson said today the service, which would operate from a shopping centre in Mirrabooka, was part of the continued expansion of the State Government's screening mammography program for the early detection of breast cancer.

Mr Wilson said this year's Health Budget provided capital costs and running costs totalling about $530,000 for the service.

In the past four years the Government had spent more than $6 million establishing screening mammography services and more than 40,000 screenings had been performed.

Mr Wilson said breast cancer was the most common life-threatening cancer in women.

"One in 14 women will develop it, and last year 200 Western Australian women died of the disease," he said.

"Early detection greatly improves the chances of successful treatment, and breast X-ray screening in women from 45 to 69 years old offers the best chance we have of detecting early cancers.

"Since 1989 the State Government has worked towards providing a network of services to improve access to mammography for women in all parts of the State.

"This is steadily being implemented.  The Mirrabooka service will be the fifth in operation, following the first one in Cannington, the mobile units in the north, south-west and Great Southern."

Mr Wilson said between April and November next year the Great Southern mobile unit would service areas of the central wheatbelt along Great Eastern Highway from Northam to Southern Cross and remaining areas to the south.  A Goldfields service was planned to start in 1994.

A new mobile unit with an on-board processor was being commissioned to replace the present South-West unit.  The present mobile bus would then be brought to Perth and located in the Whitfords area to serve the northern suburbs from about March next year for 18 months to two years while a fixed unit was built in Joondalup.

Planning was underway for a Fremantle mammography unit by December 1993, and following that another three metropolitan units to cover Midland and the hills area; Melville and Booragoon through to Cannington; and the suburbs from the city centre to the coast, as well as the South Perth area.

"By 1995 all Western Australian women in the target age group will have access to a free mammography service," Mr Wilson said.

"There will be seven metropolitan mammography units and four mobile units.  The capital cost of a Statewide service will be about $1.6 million, and the annual maintenance costs will rise from about $3.5 this financial year to about $7 million with full Statewide screening and assessment services."

Mr Wilson said shop premises in Chesterfield Road were being fitted out for the Mirrabooka service.

The target population was about 30,000 women aged from 45 years in the area bounded by the suburbs of Waterman, Scarborough, Wembley Downs, Leederville, Northbridge, Mount Lawley, Maylands, Bassendean, Eden Hill, Morley, Noranda, Mirrabooka, Balga, Gwelup and Carine.

The centre would also be used to train radiographers in mammography techniques.