WITH more than 400,000 women between 40 and 75 years eligible for mammography screening across the island, the Jamaica Cancer Society’s uphill battle to get to them worsened in September 2015 when its only mobile unit stopped working.

In fact, by the end of last year, the Jamaica Cancer Society fell woefully short of its yearly mobile programme target of screening between 1,200 and 1,500 women, when it screened fewer than 700.

“We don’t want a repeat of that in 2016 going forward, especially where this cancer is so prevalent…” Jamaica Cancer Society Executive Director Yulit Gordon told reporters and editors at their weekly Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange.

“According to the Ministry of Health, approximately 300 Jamaican families lose women to this disease annually, and we want to change these health outcomes for these women by getting the programme up and running and going out there to screen these underserved women,” she said.

The Jamaica Cancer Society is one of three beneficiaries of this year’s Sagicor Sigma Corporate Run. If the organisers of the road race reach their $50-million target, the Jamaica Cancer Society could see themselves getting a new mammography machine for the mobile programme to replace the one that is non-operational. According to Gordon, the unit will cost anywhere between $10 and $15 million.

The other two beneficiaries are children with cancer across Jamaica and the Black River Hospital’s paediatric ward.

“The mobile unit has come to the end of its product life,” Gordon explained to the Observer, adding that the unit was donated to the non-profit, non-governmental organisation in 2002.

“Traversing our roadways in Jamaica, which are not always favourable, has taken its toll on the equipment and it is a very sensitive piece of equipment,” she said. “So it has now come to the end of its product cycle and we have been raising funds and have been looking for donors to replace it.

“So we are very grateful to Sagicor,” Gordon quickly pointed out.

She said once Sagicor Foundation raises the funds and the Jamaica Cancer Society is given the new mammography machine, the organisation’s five-year target is to try to reach some 700 underserved communities.

“The screening for breast cancer, as you can well appreciate, being the number-one cause of cancer-related deaths among Jamiaca’s women, is of paramount importance,” Gordon insisted. “In fact, it is a national imperative that we have the tools that we need to go out into the communities across the island to screen for this disease that can be effectively treated, but it has to be diagnosed in its early stage.”

She said if the mobile programme is working at full capacity, the cancer society screens approximately 1,500 women per year. Although she admitted that running a mobile clinic is “very expensive”, Gordon spoke candidly about the need for the programme’s expansion.

“I would say it is costing the Jamaica Cancer Society approximately $150,000 to $200,000 each time that the unit goes out,” she said, explaining that there are costs associated with servicing the equipment, servicing the truck, and accessing clinical supplies that are not manufactured locally.

“The stark reality is that we have to expand our reach to educate the women, to bring screening to these women — those women who present with abnormal results — to get them enrolled in treatment programmes right away, so that their lives can be saved,” an obviously passionate Gordon continued.

She said through the mobile programme, the Jamaica Cancer Society removes the barrier to accessing mammography screening by taking the service to women in underserved communties. She said though that the inability to access screening by virtue of geographic location is just one of the disparities these women face, underscoring the need for the mobile programme.

“There is the disparity of access to education, so that the women can be educated on how to take care of themselves, how to minimise their risk,” she said. “There is disparity of financial access, because a lot of the women who are high risk do not have access to health insurance. A lot of them are unemployed, but they need to have their mammograms done.

Gordon explained that the Jamaica Cancer Society, through its mobile programme, coordinates with faith-based organisations, churches, schools, service clubs, and community groups to provide mammography screening in the different communbities.

However, because of the cost associated with running the mobile clinic, the organisation asks for a minimum of 30 interested people each time the mobile unit goes out.

Also, the fee to access mammograms is subsidised by the Jamaica Cancer Society.

This year’s staging of the Sagicor Sigma Run is set for February 21.