Project titled Improving coordination and cancer screening in Latvia and Slovakia ICCCS representatives of the IARC started personally during the three-day working session, which helped them to get relevant and comprehensive information about the state of cancers in the Slovak Republic, about their treatment, prevention, in particular screenings, about state cooperation with patient organisations and about informing the general public about the issues related to this topic. The guests discussed with representatives of the Ministry of Health with the participation of state secretaries, heads of staff in the field of public health, screening and prevention of MZ SR, NCZ, patient organisations, NOI and other key stakeholders, in particular screening and prevention of cancer diseases. During Tuesday and Thursday, the IARC team visited the National Cancer Institute, Saint Elizabeth's Oncological Institute and the National Health Information Centre. The visit helped experts to familiarise themselves with the existing health infrastructure in Slovakia and to discuss options for improving breast cancer screening programmes, cervical cancer and colorectal cancer.
Dr Andre Carvalho, ICCCS Project Coordinator: The information obtained from our personal visit is also very important because thanks to them we can set up the Slovak project "to peace' with the problems the Slovak Republic faces in this area. We want effective screening programmes to be used more widely thanks to the project than before, and so we will help Slovakia set up processes for planning and implementing cancer prevention programmes.
The IARC project will thus help to reform the infrastructure and health care services in Slovakia, with a particular focus on improving the information system used to identify and invite the population eligible for screening, thus creating a framework for regular data collection to monitor oncology screening programmes. The project will also provide a strategy for communication support to raise awareness of the importance of screening as cancer prevention.
A working group on screening communications is also set up at the Ministry of Health, with patient organisations, health insurance companies, as well as the National Cancer Institute, in addition to the department, coordinating essential outcomes on cancer prevention. It aims to create a common and uniform content and visual form of this communication so that it is simple, unambiguous and acceptable to citizens. –The Health Department welcomes this project. Not only reduce cancer mortality, but also really increase people's access to quality screening for breast, cervical and colorectal cancers through coordinated external communication, we see as a major challenge and the convergence of healthcare in developed EU countries. We are pleased that we could meet in person, discuss and, together with our IARC guests, set this process up, stated Róbert Babeľa State Secretary.
