By Sherry Stoneking
The new coach-style Bonnie’s Bus is making an impact as it travels across West Virginia, bringing a lifesaving service to women in the communities where they work and live.
Photo by Mark Shephard
A service of WVU Medicine and the WVU Cancer Institute, the 45-foot, state-of-the-art mobile mammography vehicle offers 3-D mammography screenings and breast care education. It replaced the original bus this July, and together with its predecessor has racked up more than 100,000 miles, reaching communities in the Mountain State where access to mammography services is limited. More than 14,000 mammograms have been provided for women throughout West Virginia, and 64 cases of breast cancer have been detected as a result of visits to Bonnie’s Bus.
The mobile mammography program works in collaboration with a statewide partnership of clinicians, public health professionals, women’s groups and other community leaders working to help reduce the number of deaths from breast cancer in West Virginia, which has breast cancer mortality rates higher than the national average.
One of the first screening visits of the new bus was the Clendenin Health Center, where both the clinical staff and their patients got to see and experience the more spacious and comfortable interior, including a dressing room, exam room, bathroom, waiting room, intake area and mammography suite featuring the updated technology that provides a clearer, more accurate view compared to digital mammography alone.
“I’m impressed by the new equipment,” says Carol Melling. “The whole experience was very pleasant. I came in for a doctor’s appointment and saw the bus and remembered I was due for a mammogram. I’m happy I was able to get a mammogram.”
Bonnie’s Bus driver Rick Maczko registers a patient for her mammography screening.
Clendenin, like so many other communities in West Virginia, depends on the bus to help local women get the screening mammograms they need.
“A lot of women walk to the clinic, so Bonnie’s Bus makes mammograms accessible for women in the community,” says Dr. Kathleen Lovin, a health center provider. “Charleston is 30 miles from Clendenin, and for many ladies, that’s a universe away.”
Ten percent of the women screened on Bonnie’s Bus have no insurance or other coverage, but no woman over 40 is ever turned away due to lack of funding. Their mammograms are covered either by the West Virginia Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening Program or through special grants.
West Virginia natives Jo and Ben Statler made a generous gift to the WVU Cancer Institute eight years ago to establish the mobile mammography program, which is named after Jo’s late mother, Bonnie Wells Wilson. “The bus is an extension of mom’s hopes and dreams that so many women would not die from breast cancer,” says Jo.
Bonnie’s Bus is on the road nine and a half months each year, from mid-March to mid-December, reaching women from all 55 counties in West Virginia. This year alone, it has 135 visits scheduled.
Maintaining a mobile mammography program that serves the entire state of West Virginia is very costly, but various organizations, groups and businesses conduct fundraisers to support the important service the bus offers. The WVU Cancer Institute hosts an annual fundraiser called the Pink Party, and this year’s event will be held on Monday, November 13, from 6-9 p.m. at Touchdown Terrace in Morgantown.
About the Author
Sherry Stoneking is a public relations manager for the WVU Cancer Institute and works in the Cancer Institute Office of Philanthropy. Prior to her current position, she was a radio producer for WVU Institutional Advancement. She is a graduate of Penn State University.
