The Mazón Government denounces that Puig left 150,000 women without being able to access a mammogram

Noa de la Torre Valencia

Valencia

Updated Tuesday, February 20, 2024-14:34

For some time now, the Valencian Government of

PP

and

Vox

, chaired by Carlos Mazón, has proposed raising the rug to bring to light the alleged irregularities committed by

Ximo Puig

's previous executive . And if the focus was first on public sector contracting, now it is targeting an area of ​​special sensitivity such as healthcare, whose management the previous left-wing tripartite took pride in after the years of cuts due to the economic crisis. Health, however, now denounces the "abandonment of cancer screening programs", with more than 150,000 people waiting for a test.

The

Ministry of Health

headed by the

popular

Marciano Gómez

has denounced this Tuesday "irregularities" in the management of cancer screening programs in recent years, especially those affecting breast and colon cancer. In this sense, the Ministry has ordered the intervention of its inspection services in order to carry out an "exhaustive evaluation" of the previous

General Directorate of Public Health

, which is accused of "opacity and lack of transparency."

In the case of the breast cancer early detection program, "a serious investment deficit in maintenance and renewal of obsolete mammograms has been detected, which means multiple failures in the operation of the equipment that force the activity of the

Breast Cancer Prevention Unit

(UPCM) affected in each failure", according to Health sources, who also point to the "alarming staff deficit". The current staff has only 15 active radiologists for the 24 UPCM, who are responsible for 35% of the annual mammogram readings.

According to the current Health team, in the last eight years - those that correspond to the two terms of Ximo Puig's government - "more than 60% of the readings were carried out by regular staff on extra hours." This would explain the "delays in referring suspected cases" of cancer to hospitals. "The program lacks the necessary structure to meet demand," these sources insist.

However, what is hidden behind this complaint is, in the opinion of the socialists, "the intention to privatize" cancer screenings. "We warn that we will be vigilant and that we will not allow this privatization," said the socialist spokesperson in the Valencian Cortes,

José Muñoz

,

But the figures managed by Health indicate that of the 410,000 women who by age should be invited to participate in cancer programs (from 45 years old), only 250,000 are called. This means that more than 150,000 women would be left out of cancer screening tests, in addition to the fact that the program "accumulates delays of up to three and four years." In other words, the two-year deadline for performing follow-up mammograms on women who are already in the program is being exceeded.

According to Health, "an absolute organic and functional discordance has been detected in the breast screening program, the result of the same political and functional discordance that existed between the General Directorate of Public Health, manager of the program, and the General Directorate of Assistance, that managed the UPCM staff through the health departments. In the words of Marciano Gómez, "this is the paradigm of the failure of miscegenation" of the previous Consell, which "caused the decline" of this program that was born in 1992 with only 3 units and grew progressively until reaching the current 24 in 2001, one per Health Department.

In addition, the information collected by Health shows that the previous Consell left the health departments of

Castellón

and

La Plana

without colonoscopies of the colon cancer screening program since May 2022, despite continuing to send invitations to participate in the program. The Generalitat denounces that it was not until October 2022 when the Ministry decided to outsource more than 1,000 pending colonoscopies accumulated in Castellón, despite the fact that in May there was official evidence of the cessation of performing screening diagnostic confirmation tests.

Regarding the population-based cervical cancer screening program, aimed at women between 25 and 65 years old, the General Directorate of Public Health is currently working to implement it "progressively." The previous Consell announced in February 2023 that after the summer the program would start to begin testing in 2024, although Health now regrets that "they did not take a single step to make its implementation possible on time."