Women have been left waiting for up to a year for a breast screening appointment due to a backlog caused by the COVID pandemic.

The health ministry said the national screening centre is “still catching up with the demand following the suspension of services”.

All women aged between 50 and 69 are offered free screening every two-and-a-half years.

A ministry spokesperson said primary healthcare was working on introducing screening “during twilight hours” and procuring another machine to help with the backlog.

The breast screening clinic was closed for three months during 2020.

Readers have complained about delays in the allocation of a breast cancer screening appointment.

One person, who preferred to remain anonymous, explained that she turned 50 over a year ago and had been calling to ask when she would be called for an appointment. She was told that there was a backlog due to technical issues.

When asked about this, a ministry spokesperson said that the backlog was the result of the delays caused by the pandemic that came to Malta in March 2020. The number of screenings impacted by the backlog was not provided.

About 300 women diagnosed with breast cancer each year

In a reply to a parliamentary question made in November 2022, Health Minister Chris Fearne noted that 2022 saw a huge drop in breast screenings. Nearly 13,300 women were screened in 2019, dropping to 7,300 in 2020, 12,000 in 2021 and more than 10,200 until October 2022.

In Malta, around 300 women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year. The aim of breast screening is to find breast cancers early, which leads to a greater chance of successful treatment.

Breast screening involves having a mammogram, which is an X-ray of the breasts, carried out by a female radiographer. It involves compression of the breast for a few seconds.

The mammogram takes a few minutes to be carried out, so a breast screening appointment generally lasts about 30 minutes in all.