The Younger Girls Christian Affiliation of San Antonio was awarded a $1.4 million grant to display screen girls in Bexar County for breast and cervical most cancers whereas connecting them with main care docs.
The YWCA San Antonio has been operating its “From Doorstep to Prognosis” program for the higher a part of a decade, serving round 600 girls yearly. The YWCA San Antonio hosts the screenings, free well being checkups and prevention training on a month-to-month foundation at its two places on Castroville Street on the West Facet.
Girls under 100% of the federal poverty line and people whose medical health insurance doesn’t cowl the prices of breast and cervical most cancers screenings in a manner that’s reasonably priced to them are eligible for this system.
Preventative care and early detection is essential for breast most cancers and cervical most cancers, each considerably extra treatable and more cost effective in the event that they’re detected early on. South Texas has larger charges of late-stage cervical most cancers.
The additional funding, awarded via Most cancers Prevention and Analysis Institute of Texas, will permit the group to broaden its attain to Black girls in San Antonio via a collaboration with WestCare Texas, a nonprofit on the close to East Facet providing an array of behavioral well being and social providers.
“After we’re trying on the knowledge of the ladies that we’ve served, one demographic that we knew we weren’t serving to the very best of our means was African American girls,” mentioned Corin Reyes, chief programing officer for well being and training on the YWCA San Antonio. “[WestCare] has the cultural competence, the training, the connections to do outreach in that neighborhood.”
Frankly, Reyes mentioned, the cash may also assist preserve the lights on amid shifts in federal funding. This system had been benefiting from COVID-19 reduction funds that expired.
This system additionally supported vaccine fairness work by connecting underserved girls with main care suppliers and inspiring them to get wanted vaccinations, beforehand leaning on funding from the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention and the Nationwide Institutes of Well being. However that cash disappeared firstly of the yr for the YWCA San Antonio and plenty of different organizations, Reyes mentioned.
“Issues have modified politically, within the political panorama, very severely over the past yr,” she mentioned. “So this funding may be very essential to making sure that we are able to proceed to serve the inhabitants that we’ve been serving.”
With potential medical health insurance premium will increase on the horizon for over 200,000 Bexar County residents who depend on the Inexpensive Care Act market, the timing of the grant is essential, Reyes added.
“We’re going to see much more wants, so we’re going to wish to sort of ramp it up,” she mentioned. “That is going to be crucial.”
