"Why have they forgotten me?" Like Anabel Cano, hundreds of women unknowingly developed breast cancer for months due to lack of follow-up, despite having undergone screening mammograms in Andalusia, and are now criticizing the authorities of this region in southern Spain.
"Good heavens, I had surgery almost a year after my mammogram! What if it had been done earlier?", wonders this 52-year-old former cleaning woman, who had to undergo a mastectomy and now only has one breast.
In November 2023, she had a screening mammogram. "If we don't call you back within fifteen days, it means everything is fine," she was assured at the time, a phrase that all the women interviewed by AFP claim to have heard.
Months passed and, without news, Anabel Cano had peace of mind, until she was finally summoned for another check-up, a year later, which revealed her cancer.
Since then, she has been the first victim of these health failures to file a complaint against the Andalusian Health System (SAS) – health in Spain, a very decentralized country, being the responsibility of the regions.
– 230 cases of cancer identified –
In September, the Amama Andalucia association (Association of women with breast cancer) brought the scandal to light, after collecting alerts from its members for months.
To date, its president Angela Claverol says she has received reports from some 4,000 women worried about never having been contacted again after mammograms.
Some of these tests, however, revealed abnormalities requiring follow-up and check-ups in the following weeks. Among these cases, at least 230 women developed cancer, and three died, according to the latest, still provisional, count from Amama Andalucia lawyer Manuel Jimenez.
Initially referring to three or four cases, the right-wing Andalusian government, under pressure from demonstrations outside the regional parliament or hospitals, is now talking about 2,317 women affected by a lack of follow-up.
However, local authorities assure AFP that no cases of cancer or death have been reported to him.
In Madrid, Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez criticized the regional government, accusing it of being responsible for a "privatization process" of healthcare that has led to a deterioration of services: "Previously, a brief phone call would have been enough to spare many people immense suffering, but that call never came."
“If they had taken care of it in time, all that I would have been spared… With this disease, time counts. And not just a little,” adds Amparo Perez, a 56-year-old former hairdresser.
After being screened in June 2023, she waited months before learning that she needed to undergo further tests, and then had to undergo a double mastectomy in February 2024.
Like many, Rosario Castro, herself a victim of the failings of the Andalusian health system and a member of Amama, is also outraged by the reaction of the local authorities, which she considers largely insufficient: "How is it that we are able to take calls voluntarily and they haven't even provided a number?"
– “Nobody knows” –
At the association's headquarters in Seville, women going through these ordeals meet, between a mosaic proclaiming "Up your breasts" to promote self-examination and leaflets offering flamenco classes to alleviate the side effects of chemotherapy.
“Nobody knows” what happened, laments its president, Angela Claverol. “Omission, negligence, or incompetence, it’s all the same. This affair has revealed the state of Andalusian public health,” undermined by “cost-cutting and mismanagement,” she denounces.
Are these the consequences of an "ultra-bureaucratized" system dependent on databases, as suggested by Rafael Ojeda, president of the SMA doctors' union? Or are they the effects of privatizing the sector at the expense of public service, as believed, like the central government, by Carmen Flores, president of the Patient Defenders Association, who has filed a complaint with the prosecutor?
The investigation opened by the Andalusian prosecutor's office for "deficits in the provision of health services" may shed some light on the matter.
The regional government, for its part, announced a 12 million euro emergency plan, promising additional hiring, and several officials were forced to resign.
But the anger is far from over, and could cost local elected officials dearly, just a few months before regional elections that will be closely watched.
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