The Health Service of the Principality of Asturias (Sespa) recognized in October the stoppage of this fundamental program for the prevention of breast cancer. Then he explained that the paralysis was due to the lack of professionals in the radiology service of the Coañés center and also to the circumstances derived from the covid-19, which slowed down or directly suspended some activities in the health facilities.
As Sespa explained at the time, after filling several vacant positions, the service was now in a position to resume screening and this was done at the beginning of November, with the idea of working at a high pace to carry out the pending tests on women between 50 and 69 years of Health Area I.
One of the first to be summoned was a neighbor from Puerto de Vega, who was called on a Saturday afternoon to summon her for the following day, Sunday, at a quarter past eight in the morning.. “They asked me if I could and I told them to give me the first free appointment, that’s why they made an appointment so soon,” says this woman, who had called the hospital several times to inquire about the delay in the appointment. “They should have done it for me in February, so I was pending,” he says.
Another example of this non-stop work is that of a tapiega mentioned last Saturday at nine in the morning. “They told me that they worked mornings and afternoons and that people were surprised to be summoned at unusual hours or days,” he says.. In addition, many patients are surprised because appointments are made on short notice and, if the person is available, they usually make an appointment from one day to the next.
Screening is a preventive program that consists of performing a mammogram in women between 50 and 69 years old, who are followed up every two years to locate any problems in time.
The Coañés hospital used to stop screening every summer and resumed thereafter, however, in September 2019, the lack of professionals prevented it from doing so and forced to prioritize diagnostic tests for approximately one year.. The platform “Let’s save our hospital”, promoted by the PP to defend the hospital in Coañés, was the first to denounce the situation, putting the number of women waiting for this service at around 4,000. The platform also complained that the hospital underused the latest generation mammogram donated in January 2018 by the Amancio Ortega Foundation.
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