MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the
Opposition.
MS JONES:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I stand today to
present a petition on behalf of women in Newfoundland
and Labrador who are calling on the government to reduce
the age of breast screening for women in our Province.
WHEREAS
breast cancer is the most common cancer among
Newfoundland and Labrador women, excluding non-melanoma
skin cancer, with approximately 370 women to be
diagnosed with breast cancer in Newfoundland and
Labrador this year; and
WHEREAS
we have one of the highest mortality rates from breast
cancer and breast cancer in young women tends to be more
aggressive; and
WHEREAS
the benchmark for Newfoundland and Labrador’s organized
breast screening program is age fifty; and
WHEREAS
women aged forty to forty-nine are not eligible to
participate in Newfoundland and Labrador’s organized
breast screening program, while women aged forty to
forty-nine are eligible in the provinces of British
Columbia, Alberta, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island,
Northwest Territories, and the Yukon; and
WHEREAS
there is evidence that routine mammography screening of
women in their forties can reduce mortality from breast
cancer at least 24 per cent, but Newfoundland and
Labrador still does not allow women in that age group to
self-refer into their breast screening program; and
WHEREUPON
the undersigned, your petitioners, call upon the House
of Assembly to urge government to allow women aged forty
to forty-nine to be eligible for breast screening to
begin at age forty and that all women be able to
self-refer through Newfoundland and Labrador’s screening
program.
Mr. Speaker, this petition has
been sent to me by women from all different parts of the
Province. I think this one is mostly women on the West
Coast in the Stephenville, Kippens area who have signed
this particular petition as well as the Port au Port
Peninsula.
Mr. Speaker, this is a concern for
women all over the Province. It does not matter where
you live, everyone knows someone who has been diagnosed
with breast cancer at an earlier age. They feel it is
important in Newfoundland and Labrador that we would
have a proper breast screening program. Mr. Speaker,
they are petitioning the House of Assembly simply
because they know the evidence out there in the country
supports this and supports it as a means of saving
lives, of reducing the mortality rate associated with
breast cancer.
Mr. Speaker, just recently the
Government of Ontario announced they would also be
bringing in legislation to reduce the age which has been
a benchmark of age fifty in their Province to age thirty
in terms of the particular programs that they are
offering.
What these women in Newfoundland
and Labrador are saying to government today is that we
want you to act. We want you to reduce the age of
screening for women right across the Province. We want
you to have a program whereby we can be referred,
self-refer under the program so we do not have to wait
for a doctor or someone else to tell us it is okay for
us to have a mammogram; that we would have a process in
place that allowed us to have access to the tools in our
Province to make an early diagnosis. In doing so, Mr.
Speaker, we know we can save lives. We know the studies
are saying that the mortality rate can be reduced by at
least 24 per cent in our own Province alone. That is 24
per cent less women who will die from breast cancer as a
result of this early screening program.
Mr. Speaker, they are asking the
government to bring forward this program and to change
the benchmarks in Newfoundland and Labrador so that more
women have access to mammography screening in our
Province.
