No
More “Suffering in Ignorance”
By Karen Kaashoek
Catherine’s Care Center
Grand Rapids, MI
This year we have been fortunate to have only a few diagnosis of
cancer in our participants. We are very happy when screening
tests come back normal. We are also thrilled when women come
back year after year with normal results. We are hopeful that
our outreach and education program will help low income women be
able to have regular screenings so that any changes can be
detected early before they become serious. With our program
successfully operating in our community for several years we
hope that no women are skipping mammograms due to not knowing
that free, or low cost services are available. Each year though,
we have at least one who has lived in our community for many
years and still is unaware of the services they can get.
Last fall we had a woman come in for her first appointment. She
lived in our area her whole life, was employed, and had a good
job with insurance benefits until about 3 years ago. When she
lost her insurance, she stopped getting mammograms. This summer
a friend told her about our program and she called for an
appointment. Her CBE was abnormal with a suspicious mass that
she had not detected. She had a mammogram and ultrasound that
day with a biopsy the next. She did indeed have breast
cancer.
Within a week she had a mastectomy and began chemotherapy. She
was told by her medical team that they are confident that she
has a good prognosis. Still she had three years without
screening mammography or CBE. We don’t find that acceptable.
It is heartbreaking to realize that even in our community with
our well-established and well-known program; women are still not
getting the message. We have decided as a result of this
incident, to re-examine our “marketing” strategy with a plan to
make sure that there are no women in our community who are
“suffering in ignorance” We stepped
up our targeted messages to local women by putting announcements
in all local church bulletins and school parent newsletters as
well. We have put in a request to a local public access
television station to do a series of PSAs on breast health. We
are waiting to get a commitment from the station to work with us
on those and then air them as well. We have also distributed our
program brochures to local service agencies that provide other
types of assistance to low income, uninsured people. We have
talked with the program staff at these organizations to make
sure that they were aware of our program and how to connect
women in need with our services. We have also participated in a
number of community programs geared to the recently unemployed
to make sure that newly uninsured women were aware of our
program.
The success of our program depends on constantly developing new
and innovative ways to reach and educate all women in our
community.
