The ACT is giving high priority to attacking the high incidence of cancer-related deaths among women, the Minister for Health, Wayne Berry, said yesterday.
Mr Berry was commenting on a report in The Canberra Times yesterday comparing ACT and national figures published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. They show that the ACT has the highest female cancer death rate in Australia and that a higher percentage of women die of cancer than of other causes in the ACT than nationally across all age groups.
Mr Berry said that in this year’s Budget funded a joint program with the Commonwealth for the early detection of breast cancer. The ACT and Commonwealth would each contribute $1.81 million over the next two years.
The Commonwealth would provide a further $62,500 for training and $136,000 to set up a data management system.
ACT and Commonwealth funding for cervical screening this financial year would reach $366,000.