Women often place a low priority on their own health needs especially when they don’t feel sick, which is typical in the early stages of cervical, uterine, vaginal, and vulvular cancers. Far too often, low-income women make sure that other family members’ health needs are addressed but do not get needed check-ups including mammograms and PAP smears.
WV Health Right’s Board of Directors feels so strongly about women’s health issues that in 1992 it adopted a policy requiring all age appropriate women to have an annual mammogram and pap smear. Further, the clinic hosts a Women’s Appreciation Day at least four times per year. This event is held on a Saturday and provides cervical exams, pap smears, breast exams (and referrals for mammograms), and dental screenings.
With the assistance of foundations and public health funds, WV Health Right currently provides free annual mammograms and PAP tests to over 11,500 women. Of this number, approximately 350 receive abnormal Pap findings that require additional testing (in the form of follow-up PAPs, biopsy or colposcopy) and, for some, treatment is needed for cancer and other abnormalities. In 2008, the clinic began offering a new procedure on-site, called LEEP. This cervical cancer treatment is a “shaving” of the cervix to remove cancer cells and is normally tried before a hysterectomy would be deemed medically necessary. The availability of this procedure has reduced the delay from diagnosis to treatment from six months to two weeks! WV Health Right is the only source in a 34-county area in southern and central West Virginia where low-income women can receive the additional testing at no charge.
For the past five years, WV Health Right has received special recognition and awards from the WV Department of Health and Human Resources as the clinic that screens more patients for breast and cervical cancer than any other site in WV. In addition, Health Right screens the most women who have never been tested for breast and cervical cancer. The result: we catch cancer early!
4woman.gov
www.nlm.nih.gov
cdc.gov/Women
armyofwomen.org
women.webmd.com