Women will have to pay up to £25 to be tested for breast cancer to tackle a serious cash crisis at Southend's Bust unit, it was revealed today.
The Lady McAdden breast screening unit, in Hillborough Road, Westcliff, will ask patients to donate a minimum of £15 for a basic consultation and £25 for an X-ray for the first time in its 28-year history.
The centre, which sees around 53,000 self-referred women, as well as seeing new clients on a daily basis, receives no Government funding. Current donations raise just £100,000 towards £350,000-a-year running costs.
General manager Linda Harrison said: "We have always relied on what an individual can donate, but for some years now those donations have nowhere near been recovering our costs and we cannot continue on that basis."
Published Wednesday January 21, 2004
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