By Catherine Masters
health reporter
The Government has been accused of selling women short on its breast cancer screening programme after a woman who discovered what appeared to be a lump was refused a free mammogram.
Sue Atkinson, of Henderson, is furious that the screening programme, launched nationally last year, is not free.
She believed its promotions indicated it was.
The 53-year-old said she was told the free screening was only for "well women."
The Health Funding Authority yesterday defended its programme, which aims at women aged between 50 and 64, but said it was not the best way for women with existing cancer symptoms to receive treatment.
Programme manager Dr Julia Peters said the aim was to find women before they developed any symptoms.
Another authority spokesman, David Graham, said those with breast cancer symptoms - such as a lump - should see their doctor, which could cost them, but free treatment would then be available through the public health system.
Labour leader Helen Clark attacked the Government for providing "half a service, on the cheap."
She said the service aimed at saving lives by encouraging women in the high-risk age group to have scans free of charge.
"The Prime Minister heralded the establishment of the service last December as a 'comprehensive programme' and a `dream come true.'
"The truth is that for at-risk women with lumps in their breasts the service is not at all comprehensive. Instead they are bluntly told to go away."
The Minister of Health, Wyatt Creech, said Helen Clark was scaremongering. Serious symptoms of breast cancer needed the right treatment by the right person.
If a woman had such symptoms "a screening programme is not the place to be," Mr Creech said.
Sue Atkinson said her doctor referred her to hospital where she was checked. She was now fine.
But she still felt the advertising of the programme was misleading.
"It was supposed to be this revolutionary, new programme to get women who were at risk and who might not come forward because of costs ... to come forward and get it done.
"There was nothing ever said about if you have found a lump we're not going to take you. It was just like false advertising - and it still is."
Mr Graham said the programme aimed to reach 70 per cent of women in the target age group, which now numbers about 260,000 but is expected to rise to 300,000 within five years.
