| Health nurse to open new clinic |
| By News Report
Private pap smear clinic to open in Bendigo
A BENDIGO women’s health nurse will open a private pap smear clinic on McIvor Road next year.
After working with women for eight years through Loddon Mallee Women’s Health, Jac Griffiths saw demand for personalised women’s services soar.
“When I started there eight years ago, the waiting list was two weeks ... it’s now six months,” she said.
“Six months is the cut off where women say that’s too long and we don’t know if they then drop out of the screening process or access their GPs.”
Miss Griffiths will open Women’s Choice in March, offering a thorough women’s health check, health promotion, education and information.
She believes her service will help women who don’t feel comfortable visiting their general practitioner or a male doctor.
“There are a lot of disclosures, some things they’ve never told their GP such as pain with sex, disclosures of sexual asssault or domestic violence,” she said.
Miss Griffiths’ pap test endocervical component statistics show she is highly skilled in pap screening.
For women under 50, 94.3 per cent of the pap smears perfomed by Miss Griffiths were reported as including an endocervical component compared with the state average of 80.9 per cent.
For women over 50, that figure was 86.9 per cent, 15.1 per cent above the state average.
According to consultant nurse for PapScreen Victoria Sandy Anderson, the quality of pap tests taken can be gauged by the proportion of tests recorded with an endocervical component, meaning the sample is taken from the area where cervical cell abnormalities are most likely to develop.
“It is sometimes difficult to get a sample of cells from this area and requires very good technique,” she said.
Women wanting to place their name on the Women’s Choice waiting list should phone 5443-5411.
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