Although “cancer” is a word no one wants to hear, that doesn’t mean we should ignore getting screened. We always want to be proactive about taking care of our health. Thanks to the HealthCheck programs, you don’t have to have medical insurance in order to do that. The HealthCheck Programs, funded by the Arizona Department of Health Services and housed at North Country HealthCare, provide access to quality cancer screening services for low income men and women without insurance. These include the Well Woman HealthCheck Program (WWHP) and the FIT at Fifty HealthCheck Program (FFHP).
The Well Woman HealthCheck Program (WWHP) educates women and helps them receive free mammograms, Pap tests and clinical breast exams in their own communities. The goal of the program is to reduce the incidence of breast and cervical cancer for Arizona women. Since 1998, the WWHP at North Country HealthCare has reached more than 20,000 women with information about the importance of early detection of breast cancer and has referred nearly 8,000 women for mammograms and clinical breast exams.
If you are age 40 or older and need your mammogram or Pap test, call North Country HealthCare (928)213-6104 or The Nurses Office (928)368-0461. Women of any age who have had an abnormal Pap test or who have breast symptoms can contact the program for diagnostic services. Women who are diagnosed with breast or cervical cancer through the program will be linked to free or low cost treatment. Thanks to programs like WWHP, breast and cervical cancer death rates in the US have been decreasing. The decline in mortality is likely due to improvements in treatment and early detection.
The FIT at Fifty HealthCheck Program (FFHP) is a newer companion program to the WWHP. The FFHP screens low income, uninsured men and women age 50 or older for colorectal cancer. The goal of the program is to reduce the incidence of colorectal cancer through screening and early detection.
Why is it important to get screened for colorectal cancer? Because it’s a slow-growing cancer that is preventable if caught early. Since colorectal cancer often goes un-discussed, it has been a silent killer for many. Among cancers that affect both men and women, colorectal cancer is the 2nd leading cancer killer in the U.S. But it doesn’t have to be that way. If everyone age 50 or older had regular screening, 30-60% of deaths could be avoided.
Through FFHP, patients are screened either by a FIT (Fecal Immunochemical Test) or colonoscopy. The type of screening depends on the patient’s medical history and their personal situation. The FIT is a simple take-home test that looks for blood in your stool. The colonoscopy is an outpatient screening procedure where your doctor uses a colonoscope to find pre-cancerous polyps in your colon. During the colonoscopy, any polyps found are removed, often before they become cancerous.
The important thing to remember is that with proper screening, colorectal cancer is largely preventable, treatable and beatable. As with all cancer screenings, the best test is the one that gets done. For more information about WWHP or FFHP, call North Country HealthCare at 928-213-6104.
Written by Sandy Seby, HealthCheck Programs Outreach Coordinator at North Country HealthCare.
Photo: Sandy Seby
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