Charge for tests
Sir,—The proposed $l5 charge to be added to the doctor’s fee for the previously free cervical smear test surely cannot be tolerated. As a country which has always prided itself on its advanced social services, this must be seen as a giant step backwards. Free testing is available for drug users, sufferers from venereal disease and other diseases which are at least partially self-inflicted. These are vital and necessary services, but no more so than the preventive check-up for cervical cancer. One hundred women die each year in New Zealand of cervical cancer. Are we to add. to this distressing figure by confining the test to the rich? A proposed nation-wide programme to encourage women to have regular check-ups will seem somewhat ludicrous in the light of this proposed charge.—Yours, etc.,
JEAN MCINTOSH. August 23, 1986.
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Press, 28 August 1986, Page 20
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139Charge for tests Press, 28 August 1986, Page 20
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