Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, September 12, 1995 TAG: 9509120009
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Bedford County Memorial Hospital's Breast Imaging Center has received a $15,000 grant to help provide mammograms for up to 200 low-income, uninsured Bedford City and County women.
The next concern will be contacting the women and then persuading them to get a mammogram, said Dr. Joel Shapiro, director of the center. Best estimates are that up to 1,400 women in the area are eligible.
Workers with the Central Virginia Agency on Aging will go door-to-door to find women 40 and older who have never had a breast cancer screening. Women who believe they fit the income guidelines and haven't had a mammogram can call the hospital's imaging center, he said. Each woman will be asked to pay $10 for the test.
Shapiro hopes the program can get started by next month.
In 1991 and 1992, Bedford County Memorial got money from the Bedford Community Health Foundation for a pilot program, but had difficulty finding women and getting them to participate. The hospital even tried to reach women by asking local grocery stores to put flyers about the screening in shoppers' grocery bags, Shapiro said.
Eventually 218 women came in for mammograms and one was discovered to have cancer, Shapiro said. That compares to national findings that of every 1,000 women screened, five breast cancers will be discovered.
Based on the 1991-1992 experience, the hospital and foundation applied to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation for the grant it just received.
Merchandise sought
Discovery Shop, a resale store featuring clothes, antiques and other items, will open Oct. 9 at Townside Festival on Franklin Road in Roanoke as a fund-raising project of the Roanoke Valley/Franklin Unit of the American Cancer Society.
To get going, however, the shop needs merchandise and volunteers to help sell it, said Betty Lesko, president of the local unit. For information on helping or donating, call 345-2572.
Clinics get money
Five free clinics in Southwest Virginia are getting $25,000 each from Trigon Blue Cross Blue Shield of Virginia as part of a program the insurance company began in 1992 partly because of encouragement from Estelle Nichols, who directs the Bradley Free Clinic in Roanoke.
Trigon gives $25,000 grants to each of the state's 25 free clinics. The clinics serve the "working poor," persons who cannot afford health insurance but whose income is too high for them to be eligible for government assistance programs.
Area clinics getting the money are Bedford Christian Free Clinic, Free Clinic of New River Valley in Christiansburg, Free Clinic of Pulaski, Free Clinic of Franklin County and Bradley in Roanoke.
by CNB