Screening for cancer saves lives.

Jill Strock repeats that phrase, almost like a mantra.

She is the manager for the state’s Cancer Services Program of the Greater Capital Region. Strock has worked in health care for over 35 years, starting as surgical tech.

“I love the OR; I really do but I just felt called,” she said of her quarter-century career managing cancer screenings.

“I do this,” Strock said, “because I’ve seen the impact of how this program can change lives and save lives.”

The program she manages now is grant-funded through the state’s health department; the grant runs through Sept. 30, 2028, Strock said.

“We serve Albany, Rensselaer, Columbia, Green, and Saratoga counties,” she said. “We work with all health-care systems in the region.”

Strock and her all-female five-member staff are located at St. Peter’s Cancer Care Center on South Manning Boulevard in Albany. “St. Peter’s Health Partners is the administrator of our grant,” Strock said.

The program helps uninsured individuals between the ages of 40 and 64 get free screenings for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers.

“Right now we are looking ahead as many individuals in our state could be losing their coverage completely or forced to make hard choices because the cost of insurance just is not feasible for them any more,” Laisa Burgazoli, who coordinates community outreach for the program, wrote to The Enterprise.

The numbers are stunning: Between 1 in 3 and 1 in 5 adults in the United States are not current with the recommended screenings for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Those cancers are the only three — along with lung cancer for at-risk individuals — that have federal guidelines for screening.

“Cancer screenings are highly effective, preventing thousands of deaths annually by detecting cancers early or finding precancerous lesions,” according to the CDC. “Key impacts include over a 40% reduction in breast cancer mortality, a 50% decrease in cervical cancer incidence, and significant declines in colorectal cancer deaths through routine, recommended screenings.”

The recommendation for breast cancer is that women aged 40 to 74 should be screened every two years.

“Breast cancer, as we know, affects one in eight women nationally,” said Strock.

 Early-stage detection leads to a five-year survival rate of over 99-percent, compared to 33 percent when the cancer is found at late stages.

Screening for colorectal cancer, which is to start at age 45, can find precancerous polyps and cancer early. Increasing screening to 80 percent, the CDC says, could reduce deaths by 33 percent by 2030.

For cervical cancer, the Pap test and HPV test can prevent cancer by identifying abnormal cells, with nearly 100-percent survival for treated precancerous lesions. Women aged 21 to 65 are to be screened.

In the 1930s, cervical cancer was the leading form of cancer death in women. The Greek doctor Georgios Papanikolaou developed a screening test — the Pap test — that became widely used in the mid-20th Century. In the 1930s, uterine cancer (which includes the cervix) had a mortality rate of over 36 per 100,000 women, whereas today fewer than 5,000 women in the United States die of the disease each year.

The Cancer Services Program, which has no budget for advertising, tries to educate people about the need for screening while it also tries to reach people who cannot afford screening.

“We want to get the word out that this program is available for people who don’t have health insurance,” said Strock.

That includes a wide array of individuals. She gave the example of someone who has changed jobs and so has a temporary lapse in health insurance.

Giving another example, Strock said, “We have a lot of entrepreneurs who have small businesses that can’t afford insurance, and so we serve them.”

She went on, giving a third example, “We have women that come into the program that are going through a divorce … They were insured under their husbands.”

All of us should heed the recommendations for regular screenings and any of us without health insurance should take the first, simple step of calling Strock and her team. The number is: 518-525-8680.

The team, in addition to Strock and Burgazoli, is made up of an intake coordinator, a bilingual outreach specialist who works with the Hispanic community, and two case managers — one of whom is bilingual.

“I wouldn’t want to do this with anyone else because my teammates are beautiful, compassionate women … ,” said Strock. “We actually have a lot of experience between all of us.”

Of the people who call, Strock said, “We work with them. We do a formal intake to make sure they’re eligible. Sometimes, there’s a lot of confusion … People don’t necessarily understand that they don’t have health insurance. We actually receive a lot of calls from people who are on Medicare.”

When people call, Stock said, “We have a wonderful conversation … We ask, ‘Are you connected to a health-care provider?’ … We actually do case management. We find out what the individual’s barriers are to care and then we work to eliminate those barriers so that we can assure that they can get their screening.”

One of the most frequent barriers is lack of transportation. “Either they don’t drive or they don’t have the money to pay for gas,” said Storck.

She described other barriers like patients not being able to get to doctors’ offices when they are open because they work full-time or because they are caretakers for their grandchildren or their elderly parents and can’t take them to appointments.

The case managers — speaking both English and Spanish — work one-on-one with individuals to meet their needs.

Strock walked through an example of a woman in need of a screening for breast cancer. An appointment is scheduled with the woman’s health-care provider, which is paid for by the program.

“She comes in for her clinical breast exam and her provider writes a script to have a screening mammogram,” said Strock. “We work with all the imaging centers. We schedule an imaging appointment and that mammogram is paid through the program.”

If the radiologist says more imaging or an ultrasound is needed, the program pays for that. If a biopsy is needed, the program pays for that, too.

“If the biopsy comes out positive,” said Strock, “now we have an individual with a diagnosis for breast cancer who doesn’t have health insurance. And so, the state does actually a very wonderful job. They know the importance of getting timely treatment. Our office facilitates and works with those individuals to make sure that they get the resources that they need so they can go into active treatment as soon as possible.”

The state’s Medicaid Cancer Treatment Program helps people found to be in need of treatment for breast, cervical, colorectal, or prostate cancer. To be eligible, the patient must be without health insurance and must be a resident of New York state and a United States citizen or an alien with satisfactory immigration status.

“They need to apply,” said Strock of being part of the state’s Medicaid Cancer Treatment Program. “There are guidelines that need to be met but it’s not like regular Medicaid where it’s all income-based.”

She went on, “We have case managers that work with the individual to make sure that they can get into treatment as soon as possible.”

Strock stressed several times, “We are not a clinic.” Rather, she said, “We work with providers’ offices and healthcare systems.”

Although the program runs screening events, Strock personally dislikes the word “clinic.”

She explained, “When people hear the word ‘clinic,’ they feel like they’re getting less care … That’s not what we do. We provide quality health care.”

She went on, “Breast cancer is one of the scariest things a woman can go through and then to be a woman without health insurance and find a lump in your breast … In this program, we walk women through and we get them to the care that they need. It’s really life-changing and I feel lucky that I get to do this work.”

Strock remembers the very first person, 25 years ago, who came through the program and got a cancer diagnosis. That woman was successfully treated for cervical cancer.

“She is still alive and doing well and thriving,” said Strock. “And we have a joke; we will occasionally run into each other at the supermarket or something and we call each other ‘our first.’ We joke about it … but to see somebody 25 years later that you had a part to make sure that they could continue to live their life healthy. To see this woman have grandkids … I was such a small part of it, but I was a part of it. It’s very important.”

Strock also said that many women skip their screenings because “they put everyone else first.”

“Women need to put themselves first,” she said. “You can’t take care of anyone else if you don’t take care of yourself.”

Each of us should follow that advice and, when it comes to cancer screenings, put ourselves first.

When was the last time you had each of the recommended screenings?

If you are overdue, call your doctor today. If you don’t have health insurance, call 518-525-8680.

You’ll be in good hands with Strock and her team. And the people who love you will be grateful.