February 10, 2015
Health board has good smear story
Hawkes Bay District Health Board is confident it is winning the battle to get Maori women to have three-yearly cervical screening checks.
The most recent quarterly report on the screening programme shows it is the best of the 20 DHBs, with 73.4 percent of Maori women in the province being screened every three years.
That’s still below the 80 per cent national target for all ethnic groups.
Kaiwhakahaere Maori coordinator Sandra Corbett says the improvement was due to the focus placed on improving screening services for Maori women by the whole health sector, including in primary care and out in the community.
Hawke’s Bay has one of the highest percentages of Maori population in the country.
Maori, Pacific Island and Asian women over the age of 30 who have not had a smear in the past five years are deemed to be the most at risk of developing cervical cancer.
Women of these ethnicities between the ages of 20 and 69 are eligible for free screening.
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