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How the Church is fighting breast cancer in Uruguay

Church donates digitizer for mammograms to the José Royol Public Health Center in Rivera, Uruguay

In Uruguay, breast cancer is one of the leading causes of death among women and has the highest incidence and mortality of all cancer in women. One way this cancer is detected is through a mammogram — an X-ray examination of the breast.

Until recently, the José Royol Public Health Center in Rivera, Uruguay, could perform mammograms only with an outdated, complex method.

With a new digitizer donated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the center can now perform 180 monthly preventative exams for breast cancer.

“I want to thank the Church of Jesus Christ,” said Dr. María Rosario Leira, the primary care network director, in a Jan. 11 news release on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

“With this new equipment, operating expenses are reduced by 40%, which adds to the advantages of preventing the scourge of breast cancer,” she said.

Dr. Leonardo Cipriani, national director of the State Health Services Administration, said this donation will not only save lives but families. “As of today, there are more women who have the possibility of saving their lives with a rigorous preventive examination. And, since the woman is a wife and mother, we are also saving families.”

Cipriani expressed gratitude for the donation and the Church’s “spirit of collaboration.”

“You all give without looking for a reward and only out of love for your neighbor,” he said.

The news release was originally published on Spanish Newsroom.

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