Abigail Dougherty
Pukekohe mum Haley Brock was diagnosed with cervical cancer after going back to her doctor four times and is urging for the new HPV self-test to be funded.
She always had her routine smears, but Haley Brock had to go back to the doctor four times before the cervical cancer that almost took her womb was detected. The 31-year-old narrowly avoided a hysterectomy, but the radiation treatments have forced her into medical menopause. The mum-of-two can never have any more babies. “It’s not even possible for me to have another child,” she says. “I would have liked to make that decision myself.”
Women's health 'held together by fax machine' as Ardern Govt fails to fund modern HPV testing stuff.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from stuff.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Reading a cervical smear test. The screen shows precancerous (CIN3) cells. (File photo) About 900 women from the Te Tai Tokerau Northland region were involved in the study, which focuses on Māori women. Māori women were two and a half times more likely to die from cervical cancer than others. The study showed almost 60 per cent of Māori women took the human papillomavirus self-test when offered it - about three times more women than those offered the standard cervical smear. The university s director of the Centre for Women s Health Research, Bev Lawton, said she expected that improvement to be seen in all women.
ABOUT USLiveNews publishes breaking raw news as it is released to journalists and news media. It specialises in New Zealand content sourced from and submitted by the New Zealand Government, the Parliament, public service, corporations, business, NGOs, unions, activists - basically all information that is influencing the nation s public sphere discourse.