The Health Counselor of the Community of Madrid, Fátima Matute, reiterated this Thursday in the Assembly that "there is no waiting list" in the breast cancer screening programs in the region and defended the average waiting time for undergoing a mammogram as adequate.
Matute was responding to a control question raised by the socialist deputy Lorena Morales, who denounced that there are "90,073 women who live in anguish" because they have "requested a mammogram and do not have a date to have it done." She emphasized, "More than 19,500 are waiting for that test Almost double what it was two years ago."
In light of these figures, the counselor accused the PSOE parliamentarian of lying and specified that the average time for a theoretically healthy and asymptomatic patient to undergo a screening mammogram is 39 days.
Matute differentiated this circuit from "another model, the mammogram that a doctor requests because they think there may be something. The average waiting time is 21 days and when there is suspicion of malignancy, it is resolved in less than 15 days and usually in 72 hours the patient is already in the service that corresponds to their problem on the way to resolution," she explained, also recalling her experience of more than five years working in mammograms and screenings at the Hospital Clínico San Carlos.
Regarding the women mentioned by Morales, the counselor clarified that they are patients included in a waiting list "either because they have not attended their appointment or because they are waiting for a mammogram that requires more time to control," as happens with the follow-up of a nodule or a fibroadenoma, for which "a mammogram cannot be done every week."
The head of Health also defended that the breast screening program of the Community of Madrid is "one of the most stable and consolidated in history" and that it presents "the best results," for which she asked the socialists "not to create fear or absurd rumors."
For her part, Morales replied that the figures she presented come from the 2025 Report of the Madrid Health Service and that they are "especially serious because they are not from the screenings, they are from the mammograms of the structural list." "I don't believe any doctor sends them for fun, so the only liar here is you," she responded addressing the counselor.
The PSOE deputy has added that "You fill your mouths with defense of life. Well, preventing and diagnosing cancer in time, that is indeed defending life. So, if you defend it so much, start with that of women."