Performing a mammogram in Mayotte is still not possible, and has been for almost nine months. When the only mammograph available on the island at the Mamoudzou Medical Imaging Center broke down in November 2023, we can say that replacing it was not a public health priority.
It was only in January 2024, before the dam crisis, that meetings between the ARS and the CHM took place, before the subject was finally put “under the carpet”, until the end of the month of March 2024, where discussions around this lack began to settle.
On March 22, the ARS had first announced that a new mammograph would be put into operation during the month of April 2024, to replace the faulty machine in the radiology center, before declaring on June 7, 2024 that the mammograph would finally arrive in Mayotte on June 25, while specifying that the installation would take 72 hours to be put into operation.
While the machine was expected to be operational by the end of the week, the mammograph would be later than expected. When we contacted the Mamoudzou radiology center, we were told that the container had “still not been delivered”, although “it should have already been delivered to the radiology center”. To get a breast cancer screening exam, the radiology center advised patients to “ call back around mid-July 2024. »
The ARS also confirmed to us that the boat carrying the new machine was “still late” and that the arrival of the container at the port of Longoni was scheduled for July 3, “normally”.
While mammography is a powerful breast cancer screening tool, in that it makes it possible to detect a possible cancer that may be developing, the absence of a diagnostic tool for several months will not be without generating significant impacts on the health status of women in Mayotte. While out of all the cancers detected in Mayotte, a third of the cancers detected are breast cancers, we can fear an increase in breast cancer diagnoses in the territory and in treatment. in fine too late.
Mathilde Hangard
