Gifford Receives National Avon Foundation Grant for 6^th Year

Gifford Medical Center has been awarded an Avon Foundation Breast Care Fund Grant for the sixth consecutive year. The only hospital in Vermont to receive the national award, Gifford has been granted $36,500 for 2007 to increase awareness of the life-saving benefits of early detection of breast cancer.

The Avon Foundation Breast Care Fund supports community-based, non-profit breast health programs across the country. Gifford was selected as one of 122 grant recipients nationwide. Organizations are chosen based on their ability to effectively reach women, particularly minority, low-income and older women, who are often medically underserved.

In 2006, Gifford, through the Avon Foundation’s generosity, reached 1,459 women during educational visits, a total audience of more than 140,000 with the help of the media, and scheduled 469 women for mammograms.

The breast health program at Gifford in 2007 will continue to educate women in Randolph, central Vermont and statewide on the importance of mammograms and clinical breast exams. Through the work of Breast Health Coordinator Jane Harrness, Gifford will reach women where they live, work and socialize. Harrness will travel the state speaking at senior centers and senior living facilities, prisons housing women, public events and to the media on the life-saving benefit of detecting breast cancer early.

"With early detection, more than 95 percent of women can survive breast cancer," Harrness says.

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death (after lung cancer) among Vermont women. Approximately 482 breast cancer cases were diagnosed in Vermont women each year between 1999 and 2003, according to an October 2006 report from the Vermont Department of Health, and approximately 96 lives were lost each of those years to breast cancer.

Nationwide, there is a new diagnosis every three minutes and a death from breast cancer every 14 minutes. While advances have been made in prevention, diagnosis, treatment and cure, early detection still affords the best opportunity for successful treatment. Programs such as Gifford’s help ensure that all women have access to early detection information and options, even poor and medically underserved women.

"We are extremely proud that the Avon Foundation shares our mission of reaching rurally-isolated women with information on the importance of good breast health. We are honored Avon has chosen to support our program," Gifford Director of Development and Marketing Ashley Lincoln said. "With these funds we will be able to continue our work, which each year leads to life-saving early breast cancer detection."

"The Avon Foundation is pleased to help Vermont women learn about the life-saving benefit of mammograms and clinical breast exams through the good work of Gifford’s breast health program," said Avon Foundation Executive Director Carol Kurzig.

For more information on breast care at Gifford, call Breast Care Coordinator Jane Harrness at (802) 728-2317.

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