NZ Centre for Political Research

Men’s Health Matters

The response from the Health Select Committee rejecting the call for a prostate screening programme for men sends out the message that as far as this government is concerned, men’s health doesn’t matter, says petitioner Dr Muriel Newman.

In 2005, a petition signed by 585 supporters calling for a national prostate screening programme for men - along the lines of the breast and cervical cancer screening programmes for women - was presented to Parliament. The recommendation to screen men for prostate cancer from age 50 was in response to advice given by the Prostate Cancer Foundation that showed when caught early prostate cancer has a cure rate of over 90 percent. On that basis some 300 lives a year could be saved if men were screened for prostate cancer.

Of the 3,046 men diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2001, 592 died. In comparison, 189 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer and 63 died, while 2,310 women were diagnosed with breast cancer and 615 died.

“I am very disappointed that the Health Select Committee has not recommended a screening programme for men similar to the screening programmes for women”, Dr Newman said. “I had hoped that the Committee would take men’s health more seriously”.

“At the very least, they should have supported a free prostate cancer screen at age 50 as part of a ‘Warrant of Fitness’ check-up that is being actively promoted by men’s health groups around the country.

“Too many men in New Zealand are completely unaware of the risk of prostate cancer. In the early stages of the disease – when it can be successfully treated – there are usually no symptoms at all. Often men only find out that they have prostate cancer when they have a problem and at that stage it is often too late to be successfully treated.

“I would have thought that given this government’s propensity to spend millions and millions of dollars on all sorts of dubious health promotion schemes, they could have found some funding to educate New Zealanders about the risks of prostate cancer and the importance of regular check-ups. That is of course unless the government doesn’t believe that men’s health matters”, Dr Newman said.