Health Centres throughout St. Vincent and the Grenadines had a Pap Smear Awareness Day on Wednesday, June 14, 2006.
This was an initiative of the Family Planning Unit of the Ministry of Health and the Environment. The awareness day was held mainly to target and encourage women over the age of forty to have Pap Smears done.{{more}}
According to Family Planning Co-ordinator Sister Naomi Prince the Pap Smear awareness programme has seen tremendous successes in the number of women under forty who have regular Pap Smears done. In 2005 there were ten (10) cases diagnosed for cancer of the cervix of which ninety percent were in women over the age of forty.
Sister Prince said that the unit is having problems in getting women over the age of forty to have regular pap smears done. Prince said that these women believe that if they are no longer sexually active they would not develop cervical cancer. This she says is a misconception and advised anyone who has been sexually active at any point in their lives to get a pap smear done.
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