Mammograms are routine. For people who use wheelchairs, they're anything but

The last time Martha Twibanire had a mammogram, she had to call three different clinics before finding one that would accommodate her wheelchair.

That was more than four years ago. The experience was so bad she hasn't booked another since.

Twibanire said staff first tried to make her stand up rather than stay in her wheelchair, something she told them wasn't possible. The staff seemed frustrated and unsure how to proceed after that, she said.

Then they took her breast, squeezed and pulled it to try to get it to reach the machine.

"Really, I was in pain, too much pain," she said in an interview from her apartment in Montreal.

"You feel uncomfortable and you feel not welcome," she said. 

"I cannot go back there." 

Advocates in Quebec say Twibanire's experience highlights a years-long problem for people in wheelchairs when they try to access mammograms.

A Quebec advocacy group, The Regroupement des activistes pour l'inclusion au Québec (RAPLIQ), recently contacted 94 clinics across the province that offer mammograms. The result, they said, was that 43 per cent advised they couldn't accommodate people who use wheelchairs.

It was the group's fourth time surveying clinics since 2014, and it says the situation has not improved.

The group said clinics gave a range of reasons, including the accessibility of the buildings and limitations of the mammogram machine.

"Every reason is good to tell us that no, they don't want us," said Linda Gauthier, who uses a wheelchair and is RAPLIQ's co-founder.

Her last mammogram was in 2014, an experience she describes as humiliating.

Like Twibanire, she was also asked to stand but wasn't able to.