Two Clinicians are Taking Gynaecology Care to Women in Remote Locations - Enabled by New Science and Technology
17 Dec 2023
The Woman's Health Bus Te Waka Wahine Hauora known affectionately as ‘Betty’ travels thousands of kilometres with a mission to lead the way in ending cervical cancer for rural women in Aotearoa, New Zealand.
Every two hours, across Australia and New Zealand, a woman is diagnosed with a gynaecological cancer. These include cervical, vaginal, vulval, ovarian, uterine, endometrial, fallopian tube and placental cancers.
Rural women in remote areas in both countries experience poorer health outcomes than urban women. Their limited access to health care often prevents an accurate early diagnosis. They wait longer for test results and there’s the additional worry of the challenges associated with ongoing care. For many, the time away and cost of travel to access gynaecological care is an additional burden for the women and their families amounting to hundreds of dollars.
These inequities in healthcare services particularly affect Māori and Aboriginal women. They not only have serious logistical challenges keeping them from attending a hospital for colposcopy/biopsy/treatments, but can have a reluctance to present or discuss symptoms with general health practitioners.
In New Zealand, Dr Helen Paterson, a gynaecologist and senior lecturer in Women's Health in the Dunedin School of Medicine and Alice van Zijl a primary health care nurse based in Central Otago have set up a mobile service to help address these problems.
“We started the bus clinic to make a difference for women in rural communities, some of whom are living with symptoms that can really impact on their quality of life.”
Their Woman's Health Bus Te Waka Wahine Hauora known affectionately as ‘Betty’ travels thousands of kilometres to small towns, rural communities and rural events providing sexual and reproductive care, cervical screening and colposcopies with a mission to lead the way in ending cervical cancer for rural women in Aotearoa, New Zealand.
Even with the HPV-based cancer screening programme the difficulties of living far from medical services remain. By using the latest technology, patient screening and fast lab results many procedures can be carried out on board the bus within one visit.
The bus is partially funded from patient payments and donations and receives colposcopy funding from Te Whatu Ora, NZ Health but Helen and Alice are grateful for all donations.
The story of Helen, Alice and Betty the Bus continues in this short video below.