Cancer Coalition Seeking to Develop More Resources

By Melissa Mcever, Valley Morning Star, Harlingen, Texas

Apr. 24–MCALLEN — The Rio Grande Valley’s cancer survivors need more support and a place to turn for services.

That’s the conclusion reached by a group of volunteers and health care providers, and thus the Lower Rio Grande Valley Cancer Network Coalition was born.

The loosely formed group has met off and on for the last couple of years, but now aided with grant funding from the Texas Cancer Council, the coalition hopes to develop more resources for the region’s cancer survivors and patients.

“The bottom line is we need better survivorship services,” said Dolly Villarreal, district director for state Rep. Ryan Guillen, D-Rio Grande City, and one of the coalition’s founding members. “We’ve looked at what survivors need, and it’s a long list.”

Using a $100,000 annual grant, the University of Texas Medical Branch’s satellite clinic in McAllen recently completed a “community-needs assessment,” looking at what services cancer patients and survivors need in the region.

In interviews with survivors, researchers concluded the Valley needs more clinics and follow-up care, more economic assistance to pay for care, more public education on cancer, more support groups and more transportation services.

The next step, coalition members said, is to bring these services to the Valley.

The region’s cancer patients face many obstacles to seeking treatment, health care providers said at a meeting. Many poor and uninsured patients seek care in Mexico because the cost of treatment is too high in the U.S. Some must suspend treatment before its completion because of cost. And treatment centers like the Vannie E. Cook Jr. Children’s Cancer and Hematology Clinic in McAllen, which treats children with cancer, end up absorbing much of the cost of treating the poor.

And then, the patients who survive cancer treatment have needs, too, said Shirley Arnolde, administrator for Clinica Maria Luisa in Penitas and a coalition organizer. Many survivors would benefit from support groups and more information about the aftereffects of cancer treatment, she said.

“There has to be a center, a main place to network and find out what resources are in the community,” Arnolde said.

Family members also need more support, she said.

With the Texas Cancer Council grant funds, the UTMB clinic already has organized support groups at area clinics and is training promotoras, or lay health care workers, and nurses on cancer care, said Norma Castillo, a social worker at UTMB.

There are still gaps in the support available, but the coalition wants to work on closing those, members said.

“It needs to start someplace,” Arnolde said.

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Copyright (c) 2008, Valley Morning Star, Harlingen, Texas

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