At least 65 women are needlessly dying of breast cancer in the west and south every year as a result of the State's failure to extend the BreastCheck screening programme nationwide, it was claimed yesterday.
The claim came from Independent Mayo TD, Dr Jerry Cowley, who said screening is known to reduce deaths by 20 to 30 per cent.
Dr Cowley was speaking at a meeting of the joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children which called on the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, to extend the programme to all areas of the State immediately.
There are 650 deaths from breast cancer in the Republic every year.
Dr Cowley said that as half the country wasn't covered by BreastCheck, some 65 women who could be saved were dying of the disease every year.
"Health apartheid is the only way I can describe this," he said.
Earlier this week, the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, announced screening would soon be extended to Carlow, Kilkenny and Wexford.
However, the BreastCheck board, which made a presentation to yesterday's committee meeting, said they hadn't originally envisaged it being extended to these three counties in isolation. They expected it to be extended nationwide, once the first phase in the midlands, east and north-east proved satisfactory.
BreastCheck director Mr Tony O'Brien said it would now take 12 months to have the programme operational in Carlow, Kilkenny and Wexford and 22 months at least to extend the screening programme to women in the west and south, once it was given the go-ahead by the Minister.
The main delay would be in compiling a register of eligible women who should be called for screening, getting facilities up and running, engaging consultants and hiring sufficient radiographers.
He said BreastCheck presented proposals to roll-out the programme nationally to the Department of Health last July. The cost of extending it to the west and south was €13.1 million in once-off capital costs, plus €12.5 million in annual running costs.
It should be "uniformly applied to the whole country at an early date," he said, adding: "We recognise that there will be competing advice and ultimately this is a matter for the Minister".
Fine Gael's health spokeswoman Ms Olivia Mitchell asked if there was some sort of battle going on between BreastCheck and the Department of Health. Mr O'Brien said there was no battle but discussions were taking place.
Last December, Mr Martin told the committee of differences between himself and BreastCheck. He said BreastCheck had a view that patients identified by its screening programme should be treated in BreastCheck host centres even if there was a "centre of excellence" closer to them. He described this as ludicrous.
BreastCheck began screening women aged 50 to 64 in February 2000 and by the end of November 2002 it had invited more than 106,000 women for screening. Some 634 cancers were detected.