Cancer screening

Press, 16 August 1988, Page 20

Cancer screening

Sir, —I find it appalling that the Canterbury Hospital Board could have to reject a cervical screening programme because of its cost. A woman’s death from a preventable or curable cancer is a far greater cost than the few dollars needed per woman each year on a screening programme. The scandal is that the Government has forced the hospital board to cripple itself with high interest loans in order to bridge the gap between its annual health allocation and the call on its services. The situation need never have arisen had the Government created credit through the Reserve Bank and lent the hospital board funds at low interest rates. What is physically possible and desirable for the protection of women ought to be, and could be, made financially possible. This is one of the New Zealand Democratic Party’s basic tenets.—Yours, etc., HEATHER SMITH. August 8, 1988.

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