April will be the last month of the preventive health program for prevention 40 Plus. That's good. Because a new program will start and even more Poles will use it – also from the younger generation. Program Prevention 40 Plus was a success that we have little in health care.
This is one of the few successes from the time of office of the Minister of Health Adam Niedzielski. Less than four years ago, the first plate appeared informing about this program. Today, doctors agree on its effects.
– It was a good program. Certainly great that prevention has been introduced on such a wide scale – says Dr. Paweł Lewek, a specialist in family medicine. – It is, I think, a very great success. A very good program – says Rafał Gozdur, a family medicine specialist.
Thanks to simple blood tests and tests at the detection of latent blood in the feces, it was possible to detect many cancer at an early stage of their development. This is confirmed by oncologists.
– We also have such patients here who began this path of diagnostics in basic healthcare under this preventive program and were then redirected to us to supplement diagnostics and for treatment. For example, we talk about colorectal cancers – indicates Jacek Ciupis, a specialist in oncological radiotherapy from the Radom Oncology Center.
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Screening has been popularized like never before
Colorectal tumors are a real scourge, because they are recognized late, and then because of this they heal badly. Annually, about 20,000 Poles fall on this type of cancer, and about 12,000 die. Something has just started in this matter.
– When I started working in cancer epidemiology, I did not think that something like this would happen, because it decreases slowly, but decreases, the incidence of colorectal cancer – comments prof. Joanna Didkowska, head of the Department of Epidemiology and Prevention of the Cancer of the National Institute of Oncology Maria Skłodowska-Curie.
It is possible that this program contributed to this. It is true that only every fifth authorized one used to prevent 40 plus, but it turned out to be success. Because screening has been popularized like never before. Many people used them for the first time.
– The research panel, which was in this program 40 plus, was slightly wider and people responded well and registered thanks to this, and by the way they found other research, inaccessible under this program – indicates Karolina Kamińska, coordinator of the Section of Prevention and Health Promotion of the Lower Silesian Oncology Center, Pulmonology and Hematology.
– During the last six months we have examined three thousand patients in our facility in the Radom Family Center as part of 40 plus prevention. This means that half of the patients who declared their willingness to treat in our clinic joined this program – informs Dorota Ząbek, managing director of the Radom Oncology Center.
A new preventive research program will start in May
From May, adults under the age of 40 will be able to use a new, richer preventive program. The question remains: how to reach them?
– Maybe we should receive some rewards, so noticeable, visible. They can be gadgets, they can be some gifts, or maybe just tax breaks. (…) I encourage the organizers to boldly test various solutions and find this golden way for Poles, so that they really and in a clear way to use these preventive research – says prof. Łukasz Balwicki, national consultant in the field of public health of the Gdańsk Medical University.