NDP, Tories bicker over breast cancer screening

Manitoba’s health minister says the government didn’t support the Tory bill on breast cancer screening because its measures are already underway.

Bill 203, The Earlier Screening for Breast Cancer Act, did not make it past third reading before the legislative session wrapped up Thursday afternoon.

The Tory bill would lower the age of screening to 45 at the end of this year, and 40 by 2026.

“Our government is already doing more work than what (Tory MLA) Kathleen Cook’s bills ask,” Uzoma Asagwara said.

Cook, the PC health critic, introduced the bill that lowers the age and mandates yearly public reporting by the health minister on the impact of the change.

Cook drafted the same legislation last year, but the government announced similar plans shortly afterward and the bill died.

The critic also championed Bill 226, which would require health authorities to notify patients when care cannot be provided within medically recommended time frames, give patients out-of-province care options when waits in Manitoba are too long, and mandate reporting of any patient deaths linked to delays in care.

“The NDP had nothing negative to say about either bill, no amendments, no critiques when brought to second reading,” Cook said in a news release.

“The health minister can grandstand in the legislature and make endless empty promises, but when it comes to acting on common sense, patient-first policy, they have let Manitobans down at every opportunity.”

In September 2024, Asagwara announced the government would lower the breast cancer screening age from 50 to 45 by the end of 2025, and eventually, lower it to 40.

Asagwara said the plan is on track, but the province needs to train mammographers and build capacity in the system first.

The province needs at least 13 mammographers to accommodate the influx of patients and is currently training seven, Asagwara said.

The minister said the NDP also plan to bring forward new legislation that protects the lowering of the screening age and reporting, among other things.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca