By CRAIG ROGERS
Doctors and health professionals gathered on the steps of City Hall on Tuesday to announce a new program to offer free colon cancer screenings to uninsured New Yorkers..
The New York City Community Cares program was designed to vault the socioeconomic barrier in fighting such cancers. Supporters of the program say that screening patients has become more evenly distributed among gender, racial and age groups over the years, setting the focus now on low-income uninsured patients.
From the months of August of 2013 to March of 2014, the program guided 350 uninsured New Yorkers to obtaining free colonoscopy screening, leaders said.
Over the past ten years, there was a 20 percent gap between the screening of insured patients over uninsured patients,the American Cancer Society reported.
“The important thing is that people start getting their screening for colon cancer at 50 and continue throughout their life, ” said Doctor Claire Bradley, president of the board of the American Cancer Society for New York and New Jersey. “Some individuals might need to start earlier. They could be on a different schedule due to their personal characters or their family circumstances.”
New Yorkers were urged to communicate with their primary care physicians to determine a more individualized health plan.
Some 69 percent of New Yorkers now are regularly screened. By 2018, the American Cancer Society has set a goal of 80 percent.
Colon cancer is the most common of the cancers, the third largest cause of death in the country and it is the second largest in New York City.
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