Since 2012, WWAV has been a partner of the Louisiana Breast and Cervical Health Program (LBCHP), helping close to 16,000 low-income, no-income, uninsured and underserved women gain access to life-saving tests for breast and cervical cancer each year.  We’ve taken it to the streets, we’ve hosted house parties with women who are alienated from the medical system, and we’ve made sure they have access to critical breast and cervical cancer screenings and treatment.
That work is quite literally life-saving.  Louisiana still ranks first in the country for breast cancer mortality rates. The best way to reduce the number of deaths is to catch cancer early. That’s why this program is so important. It saves lives. When breast cancer is detected early, the five-year relative survival rate is 98 percent; for cervical cancer, it’s 91 percent. Those percentages decline dramatically when cancer is found in later stages, which could happen for many uninsured and underinsured women in our state.
LBCHP currently receives $700,000 in state funding.  And that entire amount has been cut from the 2013-14 executive budget presented to the Louisiana Legislature.  By completely eliminating that funding, Louisiana risks losing the program’s federal matching funds as well. This would amount to a total cut of $2.8 million.
As Rep. Helena Moreno, explained in a recent Letter to the Editor, we’ve been here before. “This funding also was eliminated initially in last year’s executive budget, but restored by the Legislature. I hope again that funding is restored as my colleagues and I work with the administration to prevent the elimination of this vital program.”
Rep. Helena Moreno has vowed to work with other lawmakers to restore the LBCHP funding, and all of us at WWAV are working to spread the word throughout the communities who will be most affected by this cut.
We can’t afford not to fund the LBCHP program.
Resorting funding will save women’s lives!