OPINION: When you dip your toe into the health sector and expose some of the issues within it, the emails and messages soon follow.
An email came through to me just before seven o’clock on Tuesday night.
It was from a woman called Jo. She’s in her forties.
She has a family history of breast cancer. Her mother had breast cancer in her very early 50s. Two Grade 3 lumps in her breast.
Jo’s aunt had it when she was even younger.
Jo’s GP has always insisted that she enter and engage in the screening programme early. As is the case with any cancer, early identification is key to treatment and survival -- so Jo had her first mammograms in the pre-COVID years.
Then COVID hit. And like many women, Jo became one of the many thousands who got caught in the system and were not given a mammogram. There was a huge backlog. Everything, as we know, went on hold because of COVID.
Jo was due a recall in 2022, but that didn’t happen. Her GP got in touch and said you have to get in there -- you have to get a mammogram. And so Jo chased them down and eventually got in for a screening.
It was in that screening, earlier this month, that Jo saw something on her mammogram that made her deeply unsettled.
She spoke to me about it last night.
In the image, she saw a round, bright, white dot on her breast. She was naturally concerned and was told it would be two weeks until she got her results. That's a long time.
In comparison, I have health insurance, and my results come through on the spot. I wait maybe 10 minutes.
Two weeks is a long time to wait. Two weeks have come and gone. Jo's now sitting on 12 working days, and she's been calling trying to get her results.
Jo lives in the lower North Island.
And they now tell her it’s likely to be 15 working days - or three weeks - at the earliest before someone will ring with her results.
And one of the phone calls, Jo recorded.
In the call, Jo was told that the specialists who are looking at the mammograms and assessing whether or not they reveal the presence of breast cancer are coming in, in their own time, after work, or at the weekends to read the mammograms and determine whether follow up treatment is needed.
So...what you heard there are that specialists are coming in, in their own time, outside of their other jobs, to do the reading. The woman Jo spoke to said it relies on when they're free, as to when and whether the mammogrammes are assessed.
And it’s taking at least three weeks - 15 working days - to get a result.
Now, after what Jo saw on her mammogram and because of her family history, you can imagine the anguish. Even without that, waiting that long to find out if your mammogram is clear or if you need further treatment, is distressing.
As I mentioned, Jo has a family history of breast cancer. Both her mother and aunt had single mastectomies.
Now, I've given Jo some of the contacts I have and there are various support groups who can jump on board, and try and get her results through a little faster.
But -- wow. 10 minutes in the private health system for an assessment which immediately follows your mammogram. And in the public system, certainly in the Lower North Island, at least 15 days before your mammogram is assessed - at least 15 days.
And the specialists are coming in after they finish their regular jobs, or they're coming in, in the evenings, or at the weekends to read the results and issue requests for follow-ups if required.
More evidence of a health system under extreme pressure and failing to cope with our standard screening programmes.
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