No mammogram machine at QEH puts pressure on Breast Screening Programme

The Barbados Cancer Society (BSC) Breast Screening Programme (BSP), which diagnoses an average of ten to 11 cases every month, continues to take up the slack as a result of the lack of a functioning mammogram machine at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH).

While acknowledging that the situation has put the programme under some financial pressure, Medical Coordinator for the BSP Dr Shirley Jhagroo said the BSP would do what it needed to in order to ensure those referred are able to be screened.

The BSP is currently the only one-stop early-detection breast clinic with state-of-the-art equipment, including a 3D Ultrasound and a 2D and 3D Tomogram, and operating theatre facilities, according to Dr Jhagroo.

She said that over the last five years, the clinic has been getting referrals from the state-run QEH and polyclinics because the mammogram machine at the public hospital has not been replaced.

“The problem we have now is finance. We have had to do most of those patients at no cost,” she said on Thursday at the launch of Walk for the Cure 2023 at Sugar Bay Hotel in Hastings, Christ Church.

“Now, that is difficult for us because the doctor who reads that mammogram has to be paid, the staff has to be paid, and the radiologist has to be paid. And we look for very highly trained staff to do this. That’s going to cause a problem if the hospital does not start to play a more active part in what should be done. But at the moment, we have been able to do it, and we are not turning anybody away. Whatever has to be done will be done, whether you can afford to pay or not.”

Providing statistics on breast cancer cases in Barbados, Dr Jhagroo said the number of Barbadian women diagnosed with breast cancer continues to increase annually. In 2019, the BSP recorded 65 new positive cases, while there were 130 in 2022.

“At the Breast Screening Programme last year, we had four persons below the age of 40 [testing positive]. Three of these four persons were in their 30s, and one person was 29. But the good thing about it is that they were all early,” she said.

“The interesting thing that is happening is women are checking themselves. We start screening at age 40, but that’s not written in [stone]. We encourage anybody who has found anything at all to come early. Now, we picked up on those in their 30s because they found something or they were concerned.

“[Early] detection, as evidenced by the majority of the positive cases at the Breast Screening Programme clinic being stages zero, one and two, gave these patients almost 98 per cent to 100 per cent five-year survival. In March 2023, after a review of all patients diagnosed five years previously with stages zero, one and two, all patients were still alive,” Dr Jhagroo disclosed.

She said breast cancer awareness was responsible for the number of the clinic’s self-referred patients continuously increasing.

An average of 700 patients attend the clinic monthly for mammograms, and another 100 for ultrasound, the medical coordinator said.

Over the last 20 years, the clinic has serviced over 130 000 clients. (AH)