Breast cancer surgery by postcode

new-zealand-national-party

Tue Feb 27 2007 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)

Breast cancer surgery by postcode

Tuesday, 27 February 2007, 9:50 am
Press Release: New Zealand National Party

Dr Jackie Blue
National Party Associate Health Spokeswoman

27 February 2007

National's Associate Health spokeswoman Dr Jackie Blue is concerned that Kiwi women suffering from breast cancer are getting treatment by postcode instead of the best possible care.

Dr Blue is commenting on results from 17 DHBs that provided information on almost 9000 breast cancer surgical cases performed over the past five years.

"The inconsistency in breast cancer surgical practice in New Zealand is quite startling," says Dr Blue.

"Across the board the mastectomy rate was 50% but there were marked variations between DHBs ranging from 28% to 99%.

"There seemed to be no link with the number of cases each DHB treated and mastectomy rates.

Wairarapa DHB treated only a small number of surgical cases (141) with a mastectomy rate of only 30% - in contrast, Hutt DHB treated 651 cases with a mastectomy rate of 83%.

The converse also applied. MidCentral DHB treated only 226 cases with an astonishing mastectomy rate of 99% but Waikato, which treated 1,478 cases, had a mastectomy rate of 30%, and Bay of Plenty which treated 874 cases had a 28% mastectomy rate.

"The results were all over the place," says Dr Blue.

"I had hoped that with the breast screening programme, which has run for the past eight years, we would be seeing consistently lower mastectomy rates across the country.

"What has the Ministry of Health and Labour's two Ministers of Health been doing for the past eight years?

"Kiwi women need the reassurance that wherever they live they are getting the best surgical procedure for their cancer, rather than treatment by postcode".

ENDS

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