Qualifying women on St. Thomas and St. John have until Wednesday afternoon to take advantage of certificates worth $35 that could save their lives.
The certificates lower the usual cost of $125 for a mammogram down to $90. They're available to women over the age of 50 who don't have health insurance coverage for mammography.
May is Breast Cancer Awareness Month in the nation and the territory, and the St. Thomas/St. John unit of the American Cancer Society has been offering the cash-off certificates all month — and will continue to do so through Wednesday, May 31.
Society president Fern LaBorde said the certificate program, which is offered twice yearly, began around 1990 and has gained popularity as public awareness about early cancer detection has grown. "It picked up as more persons became aware of the breast care information," she said.
Mammograms help doctors detect breast cancer in its early stages. "It makes a difference," said Dr. Kab Kim of St. Thomas Radiology Associates, the private practice where certificates are redeemed. "It has made a difference at the in situ stage, where you can't feel it and the doctor can't feel it. We're especially interested in that after the age of 65, when the number of in situ cases increases."
Kim said so many women have been coming forward to take advantage of the discounted mammograms that the clinic has stayed open on Saturdays and Sundays all this month to accommodate those unable to make it during the work week. An administrator said the number of mammogram appointments during certificate program months is two-and-a-half times the number during the rest of the year.
Another program, the federally subsidized V.I. Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection program for low-income women, is available year-round.
Jennifer David works with the VIBC cancer detection program at the Knud-Hansen Complex on St. Thomas. She said 250 half-price mammogram certificates were distributed through her program. For indigent women, the program provides free screenings for both breast and cervical cancer.
In the first five months of this year, David said, her mammogram program has led to early detection of six cases of breast cancer, and 64 Pap smears yielded results which could indicate the presence of cervical cancer.
Clinical care coordinator Gail Rohan said the certificate program is not available on St. Croix. However, the free screenings offered through the VIBC early detection program are available to women throughout the territory, she said.
So far, Rohan said, 522 Virgin Islands women have signed up for the federally funded screening program. But that, she said, is nowhere near enough. According to 1990 Census figures, 1,300 women are eligible to take part, and she's "alarmed by the fact that women aren't running into our program for screenings."
She recognizes that mammography frightens many who do not understand its purpose. "You have to educate your community," she said. "Some women think, ‘Oh, you're just trying to put radiation in my body.' We haven't even reached the halfway mark of the women we have to serve."
And she fears that "there is a lot of cases on our island, women who know there's something wrong with their breast but are still in denial," fearful of coming forward to get the help that could literally save their lives.
That denial, Rohan said, may be bred by a number of factors. Many of the islands' more educated, affluent women to go off island to seek treatment. For those whose options lay at home, there is only radical mastectomy and chemotherapy.
Faced with those options, Rohan said, all too many women, especially women on St. Croix, reject medical treatment in favor of prayer and so-called natural cures. Some literally choose death over disfigurement, she said.
An article in a recent issue of Essence magazine said African-American women have less incidence of breast cancer than their Caucasian sisters but, once diagnosed, die of the disease at a higher rate — because their cancers are detected in later, less-curable stages. Officials working with breast cancer early detection programs in the Virgin Islands say they think that's also the case for the African-Caribbean population here.
Through Tuesday, the discounted mammography screening program offer an incentive to do something about that. To see about obtaining a certificate, call 775-5373. To make an appointment with Radiology Associates, call 774-0265.
Kim said the radiology center, located at the V.I. Medical Foundation Building behind the Roy L. Schneider Hospital, will be open this Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Monday (Memorial Day), Tuesday and Wednesday from 8:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. Appointments are necessary, he said.
