Program provides means to fight cancer

Uninsured women are able to get free mammographies and breast cancer screenings.

By NEGAR TEKEEI

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 24, 2001

ST. PETERSBURG -- At age 60, Carol Hammac was divorced, unemployed and uninsured.

And then she found a lump in her left breast.

She didn't have the means to pay for a mammography, a biopsy or any of the many tests it would take to determine whether the lump was a cancerous tumor or benign. As her 86-year-old mother's primary caretaker, she also absorbed the monthly costs of 13 different medications, groceries and health expenses not covered by her mother's HMO.

Her three children, while supportive of their mother in her frightening situation, had their own families and were unable to bear the cost of getting their mother tested for what could become a drawn-out illness.

Hammac was going to wait it out. She reasoned to herself that in less than two years she would be 62 and eligible for Medicare. She could get tested and treated then and everything would be fine.

"And then I thought, "My God, I'm going to die,' " she said.

So Hammac started making phone calls to hospitals and agencies, but was turned away at every try.

A friend told her to try Morton Plant Mease Hospital -- it had a program that might help.

The Mammography Voucher Program was in its first year of operation and funded by grants from the Tampa Bay affiliate of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It provides uninsured women in the Tampa Bay area with free mammographies and breast cancer screenings.

For Hammac, the program was as good as a cure.

A few days after she spoke with Debi McCreary, a registered and oncology-certified nurse who serves as the breast cancer adviser for Morton Plant Mease Healthcare, Hammac received a letter, a certificate for the program and an appointment for a mammography.

Within a week she had a mammography and an ultrasound that determined she would need a needle biopsy before doctors could say for certain that she had breast cancer. On Feb. 1, Hammac had a biopsy that came out positive for cancer. On Feb. 13 she had a mastectomy, where her left breast was removed and a trace of the cancer was found in one of her lymph nodes. The chemotherapy that ensued over the next four months was difficult, but Hammac said she was never afraid.

"I never had the fear," she said. "Everything was done for me. From the time I talked to Debi, I never wondered who would take care of me and what would happen."

Giving this guidance and reassurance to breast cancer patients is precisely what the voucher program is designed to do, said McCreary.

"If a woman is positive for breast cancer, we try to give them the full treatment as much as they need without paying a penny," McCreary said. "It's just so nice that I can help women who need it most through this awful time in their lives."

It begins with a $75 mammography paid for by charity and government grants, and ends with doctors and surgeons at Bayfront Medical Center, and St. Anthony's and Morton Plant Mease hospitals who donate their services to women such as Hammac who otherwise can't afford to keep themselves alive.

In 2000, the voucher program screened 469 women and found cancer in seven. This year, 18 of the 580 women thus far screened have tested positive. Because of an increase in grant money from the Komen foundation, the program is able to accept 170 more women who wish to be tested.

"We analyze the breast cancer needs of our community and go about addressing them," said Barbara Hall, the outgoing president of the Tampa Bay affiliate of the foundation.

Hall said there are about 10,000 women in Tampa Bay like Hammac, ages 40-65, who cannot afford health insurance. "If it wasn't for this program and the people who donate their time, I wouldn't know what to do," Hammac said. "They showed more concern for me than for the money, and whenever I needed it they were always there. They gave me back my life."

Foundation fundraiser

Crescendo: the Tampa Bay Women's Chorus and the Tampa Bay Gay Men's Chorus will perform in Sing for the Cure: A Proclamation of Hope at 8 p.m. Saturday at Ruth Eckerd Hall. It will be a commissioned symphonic song cycle dedicated to those affected by breast cancer. Partial proceeds will go toward the Tampa Bay affiliate of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. For information or tickets, call the Ruth Eckerd Hall box office at 791-7400.

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