Within the framework of cervical cancer awareness and prevention activities carried out throughout the province, the Ministry of Health carried out comprehensive interventions related to women’s health and sexual and reproductive health at the Eva Perón Hospital in Baigorria Grenadier.
For two weeks, without a prior shift, and at the spontaneous request of the users, 228 of them underwent molecular-type HPV (human papillomavirus, the main cause of cervical cancer) tests. Also PAP (Papanicolaou); mammograms; consultancy relating to methods of contraception; prescription of treatments and provision of medicines; and the compulsory and free calendar vaccination schemes were controlled and completed.
In this regard, Rubén Mamprín, an obstetrician and gynecologist at the Eva Perón Hospital and one of those responsible for carrying out the initiative, highlighted the importance and “the impact on the comprehensive health of the women who consulted, many of whom accessed these studies for the first time and inquiries”.
“There were 228 women of different ages who were able, in one or two hours and in a single day, to make the essential consultations for the prevention and approach of the diseases that most affect them and the studies that in usual circumstances would take them many days,” Mamprin added.
“Usually –he remarked– they are women overloaded with work, with family responsibilities, with mandates typical of the role that society continues to grant them. Generally, they do not have time to take care of their own health, to the point that they reach advanced ages without having undergone essential and routine gynecological check-ups; and there may already be diseases installed and it will be too late to reverse its outcome ”.
AN UNPRECEDENTED ADVANCE: MOLECULAR TESTS
On the other hand, Mamprín highlighted that “a year ago the province of Santa Fe began to implement the use of molecular technology for the detection of HPV, which means an unprecedented improvement for the prevention of cervical cancer.”
Subsequently, he explained that “the first kits were used to evaluate and test women from the north of the province, an area of Santa Fe that has the highest morbidity and mortality rates for this pathology, than in the center and south. Concluded this and as the work on these populations was a priority, they began to be used in the southern province.
“This for us is really a qualitative leap in detection and prevention because it allows us to study women who have never had a PAP, colposcopy or previous gynecological studies, since they were 30 years old. If this test is negative, only after five years should they be re-evaluated. This represents a very big advantage because before that they had to perform a Pap smear once, another one a year and another three years later. The test avoids this diagnostic scheme”, concluded Rubén Mamprín.
