United Way of Central Georgia expands breast cancer screening, treatment for women in need

United Way of Central Georgia announced a new partnership Monday with Atrium Health Navicent and Houston Healthcare to expand access to breast cancer care for uninsured, underinsured and low-income women.

Through their Pink Promise United initiative, United Way of Central Georgia has provided mammogram screenings, readings and transportation to appointments for Middle Georgia women who are patients at their partners like the Macon Volunteer Clinic and First Choice Primary Care.

Through its new partnership with Atrium Health Navicent and Houston Healthcare, Pink Promise United will have the resources to help even more women and provide more comprehensive treatment.

“As we started having conversations with the two hospitals, it also became clear that there was a whole group of women that if they didn’t go to Macon Volunteer Clinic or First Choice Primary or some of the other partners that we were using, then they were kind of off the Pink Promise United radar,” George McCanless, President and CEO of United Way of Central Georgia, said at a joint press conference Monday. “For the women that maybe their first interaction or their first time seeing the doctor is at Atrium or at Houston Healthcare, now this funding is available for the hospitals to work directly with the women coming there.

“The other way where we had gotten distant a little was the women where their mammogram does come back positive and they need additional treatment. Working with the hospitals, we’re in a much better position for them to use the funding to support that … It is expanding the ability of Pink Promise United and this funding to make sure that every woman in Central Georgia, if they need a mammogram, will be able to get them.”

Since 2018, Pink Promise United has screened more than 1,500 women for breast cancer and found that 88 had an abnormal result.

The initiative was created to fill a void left after the Central Georgia chapter of Susan G. Komen dissolved in 2018.

Pink Promise United has raised $364,181 for breast cancer screening and care so far. McCanless said they hope the new partnership will “accelerate” funding as more people learn about expansion.

Dr. Paul Dale, a surgical oncologist with Atrium Health Navicent, emphasized the importance of early detection.

“The ones that are diagnosed with mammography are going to do much better than the ones who come in because they feel a lump,” Dale said. “The ones that come in with a lump are the ones that haven’t had a mammogram.

“For the ones that can’t afford it’s sad, because we’ve done studies and we know that for ladies who present with large tumors with lymph node metastasis, ladies without insurance who come in that way do just as well as our ladies with insurance once they can get to us and start that treatment. It’s just getting them here and getting here early. and that’s what this is all about.”

McCanless said the Pink Promise United program at Atrium Health Navicent and Houston Healthcare has already taken effect and they will try to accommodate walk-ins.

“Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer for women in the country,” McCanless said. “But if caught early enough, it’s an almost 100% chance of survival. And so as we work with families in poverty, many are often led by single moms. It just was hard to sit back and think that a mother was going to not go get a $200 mammogram if that meant she was going to have to take a week’s worth of food on her table.”

According to a statement from United Way of Central Georgia, patients at First Choice Primary Care, Houston County Volunteer Medical Clinic, Macon Volunteer Clinic, Community Health Care Systems and Dept. of Public Health are automatically screened for eligibility for the program.