The Breast Cancer Alliance awards outreach grants to local programs that support breast cancer patients. Profiled here is St. Vincent's Medical Center.
St. Vincent's Medical Center
 St. Vincent's mammogram van |
 Carla Kidd, Margaret Sinclair and Cathy Sutton with Michael Bisciglia, VP, Sandy Reyes, Mobile Mammography Manager, and Ron Bianchi, Corporate Senior VP |
As part of the BCA's mission to fund services for uninsured and underserved women, we support a variety of programs that help women gain access to breast health care. One such program is the mobile mammography program at St. Vincent's Medical Center in Bridgeport, CT.
Sandy Reyes can tell you lots of stories. The one about the 29-year old uninsured woman who came in to check out a lump and ended up with a mastectomy. The woman who just got laid off and lost her insurance, then found a lump in her breast. The undocumented man who called to ask, in Spanish, if anyone would help his wife. "Those are the people we often see," says Sandy, "the women who are underserved, who can rarely pay, but who need access to breast health care just like everyone else."
Sandy is the Coordinator at St. Vincent's Mobile Mammography Program, which oversees the hospital's mobile mammography van. The BCA helps provides funding for screenings which take place in the 38-foot coach, with state of the art digital imaging equipment, that makes the rounds of nursing homes, churches, schools, office buildings, and shopping centers in the greater Bridgeport area. "We'll go wherever we can park," jokes Sandy. The program offers free screening mammograms, diagnostic mammograms and breast ultrasounds for dense breasts and provides necessary follow-up care depending on the test results.
The hospital provided over 3,200 mammograms in 2010, with over 700 of those performed in the mobile mammogram coach. 17 women from the mobile coach went on for biopsies and five were found to have breast cancer and needed further treatment.
The program's efforts don't stop after the initial mammogram. From there, the hospital employs a vital tracking system to make sure women get the follow up care they need. Patients receive letters reminding them of scheduled follow up-visits. Those who are treated for breast cancer are encouraged to take advantage of the Integrative Survivorship Center at the Hospital's new Elizabeth M. Pfriem Cancer Center. The center creates a plan for long-term wellness for cancer survivors, including lifestyle counseling, support groups, and psychological counseling. "This center provides best practices in survivorship - it's how we stay in touch with our patients who need long term care," points out Reyes.
"Our purpose is to reduce barriers to breast cancer screening," says Lyla Steenbergen, Director of Major Gifts at St. Vincent's Medical Center Foundation. Through the mobile mammography program, BCA’s grant provides mammography and ultrasound screening to women who might not otherwise receive a mammogram for financial reasons, language barriers, handicap accessibility, transportation issues, child care constraints, lack of access to medical facilities, and other reasons.
“St. Vincent’s is unique because we take the patient through every step of diagnosis, treatment and survivorship whether the patient has insurance or not. And when other Centers offering screening run out of grant money, they will often send their patients to the St. Vincent’s Woman’s Imaging Center where we provide the services for them. In our minds this is a significant safety net to offer to the community. Gifts like those from the Breast Cancer Alliance make it possible to serve our community, and we are truly grateful for that opportunity," she remarks.
Reyes has been at St. Vincent's for more than 30 years and finds the mobile mammography program a truly rewarding part of her job. She says, "It is a godsend to have the equipment and services that can handle the special needs of our clients. We can see the difference we make in the faces of the women who come here - they relax, they open up and they feel comfortable here." She adds, "If I can help one person," it makes my day."
