The spokesperson for the Health of Navarra Sum, Cristina Ibarrola, has asked the Government of Navarra that, “in addition to guaranteeing the continuity of early detection of breast and colon cancer with the pre-pandemic rhythm, implement a extraordinary plan to recover all the activity that has been stopped during the pandemic. “In the case of breast cancer, it urges that it be done in a maximum period of six months and in the colon, in a year.
Ibarrola has defended, in a statement, that “the most effective measure to reduce avoidable mortality from breast and colon cancer is early detection.” “Navarra has been a national benchmark in both programs since they were implemented, the first in 1990 and the colon in 2013, in a difficult economic situation,” he remarked.
In this sense, he recalled that, due to Covid-19, “during the first six months of the pandemic the breast cancer detection program reduced its activity by 80% compared to the previous year and activity has not yet recovered. completely “.
In the colon, he added, “the program has been paralyzed for a year, something that with this duration only occurred in Navarra and Castilla La Mancha. “” Compared to 2019, during 2020, 90 cases of colon cancer and 1,700 cases of polyps were no longer diagnosed in Navarra with the suspension of the screening program and adenomas, 1,000 of these cases of medium-high grade, with the possibility of developing colon cancer in the future, “the NA + representative stressed.
As he has indicated, “colorectal cancer screening, despite being the most complex to implement and requires a significant initial investment, is the most cost-effective because, at the same time, it manages to reduce mortality by between 16% and 33% , it also prevents the appearance of many cases of cancer, by removing with this program precancerous polyps that will thus never develop cancer, hence our concern about the paralysis for so long “.
In addition, the spokesperson for Health of Navarra Suma has criticized that “during the pandemic the Navarre Health Service-Osasunbidea has not guaranteed the circuits of well-founded suspicion cancer in Navarra “. And he has censured that” the abandonment of non-Covid activity in the management carried out by the Department of Health during the year of the pandemic translates into the longest waiting list at first consultation and in reviews that has existed in Navarra , as well as the increased risk of complications from chronic diseases and delays in the diagnosis and treatment of serious diseases such as cancer “.
For all this, Ibarrola has considered that “it is urgent to prioritize programs that recover as soon as possible the deterioration in the health of the Navarrese population as a result of non-Covid health problems.”
– .
