THE number of women screened for breast cancer at Letterkenny University Hospital so far this year has dropped by almost 90 percent due to Covid-19.
While BreastCheck services have resumed in recent weeks, the numbers screened to that point are just a fraction of the figure for 2019.
Last year, 3,974 women availed of the BreastCheck screening service at Letterkenny University Hospital. In 2018, 6,638 people were screened at LUH.
This year, screening was paused in March, due to the emergence of Covid-19. By that point, just 482 women had been seen at the hospital.
While services resumed earlier this month, they willo perate at reduced capacity due to Covid-19 – with the HSE estimating it could take several years to clear the backlog.
The matter arose at a meeting of the Health Forum West – where it was revealed that overall, hospitals in the Saolta Hospital Group screened just over 8,000 people between January and March.
That compares to a figure of almost 50,000 for the nine hospitals in the group that offer BreastCheck screening throughout last year.
Ms Fiona Murphy, Chief Executive, National Screening Service, said BreastCheck is operating at reduced capacity in Letterkenny at present due to measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
“The unit is typically operational three days a week, but as we work through our restart, our plan is to screen five days per week in Donegal to help maximise our capacity.
“We will be able to screen 90 women per week when operating three days per week, and 150 when operating five days per week. We will monitor the situation, matching capacity to uptake daily,” Ms Murphy said.
“However, with a finite level of suitably trained staff available in Ireland and indeed worldwide, regardless of available budget, we have the difficult task with matching the number of screening invites possible to issue with our available screening capacity in each geographical location. We are actively recruiting staff and looking at other ways to maximise capacity. We are asking staff to work additional hours where possible but we cannot afford to risk ill-health in our staff by not taking regular breaks and rest,” she added.
Members heard that the HSE is working to provide the people of Donegal with the necessary resources to safely resume screening
“We hope that our work supporting the symptomatic services in Letterkenny General Hospital during the pause in screening will also have helped to ensure there are no future delays for any patients who have a cancer detected through screening,” Ms Murphy said.
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