Trial cervical screening kits available

The Geraldton branch of the Women’s Health Resource Centre will participate in an Australia-first trial of patient-conducted cervical screening kits, thanks to a funding boost.

Cancer Council Australia recently developed a kit for health professionals focused on engaging under-screened women in cervical screening with plans to roll out the trial with GPs and pap smear providers throughout Australia.

Sexual health nurse Lisa Moser from WHRC said the kit would be perfect for women who were afraid of cervical screening.

“We’re one of the first places in Australia to offer the trial kits where women can do their own collection and screening,” she said.

“It’s for those women who would never come and get a pap smear because they have a fear of the pap smear process.

“They’ll still present to us and we will offer them the self-collection kit to be used by the client themselves in our clinic.”

The WHRC’s clinical program provides free or low-cost health care to women who cannot afford GP services.

The services are provided by qualified nurses with clinical pap smear credentials, to women who are usually those at high risk of women’s health problems.

Ms Moser said early detection of cervical cancer was the key to delivering effective treatment.

“Cervical cancer is the most preventable cancer in Australia because we do the two-yearly screening and we have that ability to pick it up far earlier before it gets to that cancerous stage, which can be 10 or 20 years down the track,” she said.

“It’s the women who are under-screened that are most likely to have cervical cancer present.”

Geraldton MLA Ian Blayney has supported the cervical screening program through sponsorship for the past five years and recently secured State Government funding for the centre.

He said the benefits of preventative health care were obvious but were sometimes hard to support in tough financial times.

“If you can get tests and detect problems early, the costs of dealing with that are minimal,” he said.