The Eastwick Press Newspaper

Eastern Rensselaer County's Community Newspaper

Women On A Mission

By

by Alex Brooks
The women of the Cancer Services Program of Rensselaer County are on a mission – to detect cancer early and get treatment for those who need it. Program Manager Aimee Pachucki said they have been driving all over Rensselaer County and discovering the back roads in the Eastern part of the County, meeting lots of people and trying to get the word out that cancer screening is easy and free and it saves lives.
If you’re a man over 50 or a woman over 40 and uninsured or underinsured, they want you to be tested for cancer, at no cost to you.
Outreach Manager Beth Weest said people are sometimes reluctant to take advantage of free screening programs for a variety of simple practical reasons like transportation or scheduling but also for more complicated reasons, like reluctance to accept free medical services or fear of discovering a cancer that they can’t afford to have treated.
The program has ongoing agreements with medical providers at 30 sites throughout the County, where screenings can be arranged at any time. Village Primary Care in Hoosick Falls and the Hoosick Falls Family Health Center are among these, as are imaging centers at Northeast Health, Seton Health, and Greenwich Imaging.
If there is a diagnosis of cancer from these screenings, programs are available to pay for the cost of treatment with income eligibility up to 250% of the poverty level, which qualifies a large proportion of people from our area. For more information on all of this, you can call Beth or Aimee at 518-454-4013.
There’s a Cancer Services Program like this in every county in New York State. It is an innovative partnership of government, private medical providers and non-profits. The program is funded by State and Federal money but relies also on a network of partnerships with various private institutions in the area. The American Cancer Society provides office space at their Loudonville offices, and St. Peter’s Hospital Foundation acts as fiscal manager and contract holder for the Program.
The Bellevue Mobile Mammography van will be coming to the Berlin Jr-Sr. High School in Cherry Plain on Monday, May 17, from noon to 5 pm. They are scheduling appointments right now, so call right away (454-4013) if you are interested.