the essential
This Wednesday, October 16, the mammobile, a mobile radiology truck, was stationed in Revel to encourage women aged 50 to 74, far from radiology centers, to carry out free breast cancer screening. Given the number of people registered that day, the need for proximity is obvious.
This Wednesday, October 16, the Professional Territorial Health Community (CPTS) of Lauragais and the municipality of Revel came together to offer a day entirely dedicated to women’s health.
Parked in the Claude Nougaro room, the mobile truck offered free breast cancer screenings. This mobile radiology center, from Montpellier, travels regularly to meet a need for proximity in health, especially in rural areas.
That day, 130 women registered. If they could not all be received, due to lack of time, this is proof of the success of this type of operation.
“The Revel radiology center has closed,” laments one of the women registered that day. “We have to go to Castres or Castelnaudary, or even Toulouse.”
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An observation that the CPTS teams also make. “There are needs in the sector. We know that there are many people with reduced mobility, elderly or isolated people in the region. It is a real challenge for them to get tested,” estimates Amandine Adam, assistant. of management at the CPTS of Lauragais.
With the mobile, we headed to the radiology room, then a local doctor carried out palpation. The results, analyzed by Montpellier, then Toulouse, are then sent directly to patients.
Need for proximity
“I lived in Auch before. I have lived here for two years, and it was when I arrived that I realized what medical desert meant,” says another patient. “We no longer have a radiologist, a dermatologist. It’s not easy to get around, we’re not getting any younger. We come here because it’s near us.”
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In the region, less than one in two women are screened for breast cancer, an average lower than that of Haute-Garonne and France. With the Local Health Contract system at the intercommunal level, health official Jérôme Garcia hopes to make up for this delay. That’s why the mobile was there that day, and why it will surely come back. “These days […] demonstrate once again the importance of ‘reaching out’ to the population to improve access to care”, estimates the president of the CPTS of Lauragais, Michel Dutech.
The organization had also organized conferences on violence, menopause, diet… In Revel, and in Caraman the day before, 164 mammograms, 33 smears were carried out, 44 colorectal cancer screening kits were distributed. All this, with the mobilization of around forty health professionals in the sector.
