World Cancer Day, February 4 Close the Care Gap

BreastScreen WA - caring for more WA women than ever before

BreastScreen WA (BSWA) is excited about the year ahead as it plans to open more breast cancer screening clinics, increase clinic capacity and expand their mobile units.

This important planning work will go a long way towards closing the care gap, which is also this year’s World Cancer Day theme. “Close the Care Gap” is all about raising awareness of the equity gap that affects almost everyone.

The BSWA Strategic Operations Plan 2030 prioritises where new screening clinics and expansion of current rooms will open, based on population projection data of WA women aged 40-74.

BSWA opened its new Albany clinic in July 2021 and has recently expanded the screening capacity at its Mirrabooka and Padbury clinics.

“These new screening rooms and the recruitment of extra Medical Imaging Technology staff will mean that a massive 10 to 12,000 extra mammograms can be performed each year in these clinic locations,” Dr Liz Wylie, Medical Director of BSWA, explains.

“We are also well on our way to opening another new clinic in Joondalup, which has been identified as having a marked increased population growth.

In order to continue providing screening services equitably across the state, BSWA is also planning to increase our highly successful mobile van screening fleet in early 2023, Dr Wylie said.

“Breast cancer remains the most common life-threatening cancer in women in Western Australia with 1 in 7 Australian women developing it in their lifetime.

“World Cancer Day is an opportunity to remind women that having a screening mammogram every two years significantly reduces your chance of breast cancer, by detecting 70 – 90 per cent of breast cancers.”

Take the time to have this really important screening test, ring 13 20 50 or go to the BSWA website (external site) to book online.