The Screen for Life Coach is returning to the road this spring, providing breast, cervical and colon cancer screening to more than 70 different locations in northwestern Ontario, including several First Nations communities.
Starting April 5, the mobile health screening service will cover the territory from Wawa to the Manitoba border, allowing people to get screened without leaving their hometowns.
Officials with the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre are encouraging people who are eligible for cancer screening to call and book an appointment. The full travel schedule can also be accessed online.
Northwestern Ontarians behind on screening
In Ontario, women who are between the ages of 50 and 74 are advised to have a breast cancer screening mammogram every two years, according to hospital officials.
Women between the ages of 21 and 69 who have ever been sexually active are advised to have a Pap test to screen for cervical cancer every three years.
Men and women between the ages of 50 and 74 who have no first-degree family history of colon cancer should complete a fecal occult blood test (FOBT) kit every two years.
According to data from the Cancer Quality Council of Ontario, only 61.8 per cent of women in the region served by the Northwest Local Health Integration Network were up-to-date with their breast cancer screening in 2015.
Fifty-nine per cent were up to date on their cervical cancer screening, and 42.8 per cent of adults between the ages of 50 and 74, were overdue for colon cancer screening.
