Doctors concerned at cervical screening

Press, 4 September 1989, Page 16

Doctors concerned at cervical screening

PA Wellington The Medical Association wants the Minister of Health, Ms Clark, to order a review of Health Department plans for a national cervical screening programme if it fails to answer criticisms raised by doctors and health activists. The association chairman, Dr Lewis King, said the department had been put on notice that doctors strongly disagreed with the way it was organising the programme after a meeting that the association called for on August 22.

“We told them that had we not heard from them in a week we would be writing to the Minister formally requesting that a review committee be set up.” Dr King said the association, along with other professional groups such as the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Cancer Society, was concerned that the department was planning a programme that would

not work. Its plans had been developed without consultation with either outside professionals or consumer groups, and deviated significantly from the recommendation for such a programme by Judge Silvia Cartwright. “We feel many of the Cartwright report’s recommendations and the lessons from overseas experience are just not being applied in New Zealand,” Dr King said. Dr King said the department’s plan was apparently based on a national computer-based register, to be tried in Wanganui within the next month or so.

It was unclear how women would be registered or what proportion of the $l4 million allocated in the Budget for the programme would be spent on computer equipment. Doctors were also critical of the department’s lack of consultation with wojnen consumers and of the responsibility that

area health boards would be given for implementation. Dr King said the department planned to have the register running by November and the full programme running by February next year.