With a higher risk of breast cancer in her family, Cathy Sapergia felt it was important to get screened, especially as she got older. However, the Saskatchewan woman ended up having to wait a year before she could receive a mammogram. Now, Sapergia wants to know what specific measures Saskatchewan’s health minister has planned to cut down on mammogram wait times. “I’m pretty frustrated and mad that even an attempt to rebook it — it’s an entire year,” Sapergia told reporters at the Legislative Building on Tuesday. “When I spoke to the receptionist, she said that there was no cancellations happening because women are hearing that their next appointment is a year away and that is extremely frustrating.” Sapergia was brought to the Legislature as a guest by the Saskatchewan New Democrats. During Tuesday’s session of question period, Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill said the province was booking mammograms “within one or two weeks in nearly every site.” “Pretty mad and frustrated to hear someone say it’s two weeks when it’s two weeks-to-a-month to maybe get that very first call from a receptionist and then your actual appointment is certainly not two weeks away,” Sapergia noted. “It’s going to be a year; it’s going to be eight months. It’s incredible.” After nearly a year of waiting, Sapergia asked a receptionist if she could reschedule her appointment as other things had come up in her life at the time, but she was told the next available appointment wouldn’t be until November 2027. The Saskatchewan woman said she was “stunned” to hear that and opted to commit to her originally scheduled appointment. She indicated the results for her test were promising. Minister says care is important “When I speak to women across the province, timely access to breast health care is very important,” Minister Cockrill told reporters on Tuesday. “Over the last three years, upwards of $15 million has been spent specifically on breast health initiatives and enhancing that work that we do here in Regina, in Saskatoon as well as several other sites around the province.” However, Cockrill admitted there is still more work to do. Cockrill says wait times are down He said there have been significant reductions in waiting times for biopsies and that general improvements have been seen. The minister also stated the province’s agreement that sends patients to Calgary is still in effect, clarifying that the practice is specifically for diagnostic mammograms and biopsies rather than screening mammograms. Screening mammograms are still done in Saskatchewan. “We still do diagnostic mammograms, of course, here in Regina and Saskatoon … the agreement that was brought in with the vendor from Calgary, that was in recognition that there were significant wait times at that time,” he said. “I think we’ve brought biopsy wait times down in Regina by, I think it’s 83 per cent over the last year, year-and-a-half. That’s significant. That’s progress.” He added the province will continue to monitor wait times to determine whether or not it will continue the out-of-province initiative. “I would expect that we’re going to continue to see investments into breast health centre, breast health care, in the province,” he said. “… We have a really strong partnership with the Cancer Foundation of Saskatchewan. We’ve been able to make several investments into the mobile mammography units that we have in the province in terms of doubling capacity; they’re going from 21,000 screenings a year now to 42,000 screenings a year."
