Women aged 40 and over will be eligible for free breast cancer screenings beginning next year, a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmaker said yesterday.
“The Bureau of Health Promotion has allocated a sum of NT$240 million [US$7.27 million] in its 2010 budget to provide free breast cancer screening for women aged 40 or over,” Legislator Chao Li-yun (趙麗雲) said.
“Department of Health [DOH] Minister Yaung Chih-liang (楊志良) gave me this information when he visited the Legislative Yuan last week,” Chao said.
Chao said breast cancer is the most common form of cancer and the fourth leading cause of death among women in Taiwan.
The lawmaker also said that women are getting the cancer at an increasingly young age, with those in the 40-to-49 age group most vulnerable to the disease.
“As women in this age bracket usually play a leading role in their families, their falling victim to the disease can deal a severe blow to their families,” Chao said.
The trend has compelled Chao to push the DOH to lower the age at which women become eligible for free breast cancer screening from 50 at present to 40.
Former DOH minister Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川) had said he would lower the age to 45 before the end of this year at the earliest.
Chao said the new DOH minister told her the age would be lowered to 40 starting next year, provided the legislature passes the central government’s budget during the fall legislative session.
Next year, of the NT$600 million in the DOH’s budget for free cancer screening, NT$240 million will be reserved for breast cancer screening for women over the age of 40, she said.
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