More money needs to be spent on health-screening programmes, the Medical Association says.
An investigation has been launched into Healthcare Otago's breast-screening programme after a clerical error resulted in some patients not getting follow-up treatment.
It was a concern that some health-screening programmes were not trustworthy, said Medical Association chairwoman Dr Pippa
MacKay. "The [competitive] environment in which they were set up perhaps contributed to them not being as reliable as the people of New Zealand had a right to expect from them.
"There was a lack of national coordination in them and I don't believe they were properly funded either," she said.
"You have to look at whether the funding has been adequate for safe, robust systems to run these programmes."
But while there were some foul-ups in screening programmes, there was not enough credit given for the thousands of people who had passed through them safely, she said.
Alliance Health spokeswoman Phillida Bunkle renewed calls for a national cancer control agency to cover screening programmes and to coordinate care of cancer patients.
"A systematic approach to detecting cancer and dealing with it is a key part of saving lives that have been affected by problems with the system in the past," Ms Bunkle said.
Health Minister Annette King said yesterday that health-screening programmes would be monitored and assessed to ensure national standards were maintained.
Monitoring would be carried out by the Ministry of Health with funding provided by the ministry.
"The ministry will take on a much stronger monitoring and auditing role than it has in the past, and a much stronger role than Regional Health Authorities or the Health Funding Authority has in the past," Mrs King said.
The terms of reference for an independent review of Healthcare Otago's breast-screening programme were announced last night.
The review team will include an epidemiologist, radiologist, surgeon and a public representative, said Health Funding Authority chief executive Peter Hughes. It will report weekly.
Healthcare Otago chief executive Dr Bill Adam confirmed this week that an investigation was under way after irregularities were found in the results of three breast-screening patients in late May and early June.
Dr Adam said 13,000 files had been re-examined and data errors detected in 50 tests. Affected women were being contacted.
- NZPA
