MP Elena Bodnarenko recommends introducing breast cancer screening in the common mandatory health insurance program for all women. She expressed her bewilderment at the fact that this hasn’t been yet done given the number of deaths caused by breast cancer. Responding to an inquiry made by Communist MP Elena Bodnarenko, secretary of state at the Ministry of Health, Labor and Social Protection Aliona Serbulenko invoked the limited financial resources, IPN reports.
Reporting in Parliament on October 25, Aliona Serbulenko said mammography machines until now existed only at the Oncology Institute, the National Diagnosis Center and at private health facilities to which access is limited. The three mobile mammography machines purchased recently will improve the rural population’s access to such services.
Breast cancer was the fifth leading cause of death in Moldova in 2017, after uterine, lung, intestinal and hepatic-gastric cancer. A number of 511 women died in 2017. Of these, 124 were of working age. Most of the cancer deaths were recorded in Rezina, Glodeni and Vulcănești.
In 2016, the government approved the national cancer control program for 2016-2025 that envisions concrete measures for preventing a number of types of cancer, including breast cancer. Over 4 million lei was earmarked in the mandatory health insurance funds for taking preventive measures in 2019.
In a response to an inquiry made by IPN News Agency, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Social Protection said the family doctor is the one who decides when a woman needs a scan to detect breast diseases covered by the common mandatory health insurance program. This clinically examines the mammary glands of women and girls aged 18 and over and decides which of them should have a mammogram.
The number of women who develop breast cancer in Moldova has increased. About 1,000 new cases of breast cancer are recorded annually. Approximately 10% of the women lose the battle with the disease during the first year of the detection, with late detection being the main cause. The average age of the persons who develop breast cancer is 50 years.
