The ribbon to the new McLeod Mobile Mammography Unit was cut by (rom left to right) Will McLeod, Jeannette Glenn, Dr. Karen Hill, Dr. Shawn Conwell, Donna Isgett, Doris Lockhart, Shirley Meiere, Jill Bramblett and Joan Billheimer.

McLeod Health unveiled its new Mobile Mammography Unit on Tuesday, January 10, 2023, during a press conference and ribbon cutting.

Donna Isgett, President and CEO of McLeod Health, welcomed the news media, McLeod staff and donors of the McLeod Health Foundation to the event to celebrate the new McLeod Mobile Mammography Unit. “For generations we have been here for life, a community taking care of a community, neighbors taking care of neighbors. One of those examples was back in 2006 when we said we really needed to reach out to those small communities, people who don’t have access to mammography. How would we do that? We’d do that in a mobile mammography unit. In 2006, this community came together to fund mobile mammography.

“Fifteen years later when this incredible resource needed to be replaced so it could reliably travel throughout the region to offer this special service to women, once again donors to the McLeod Health Foundation responded to the call for help. More than 200 businesses and community members came together and said, that’s not okay. We have to serve those patients and they contributed to the purchase of a new McLeod Mobile Mammography Unit.

“Now you see standing behind us, thanks to $850,000 plus, how this community came together to care for this community. Many of those community members are our own employees. Many of those members are businesses whose employees were diagnosed in their own parking lot. Many were women who survived,” said Isgett.

Dr. Shawn Conwell, Medical Director of McLeod Breast Imaging, addressed the community impact of the mobile mammography unit. “We are here today to celebrate the impact the McLeod Mobile Mammography Unit has had on this region. It’s been in our community for the last 15 years. It’s been on the road since January 2008. In that time frame, we’ve screened more than 36,000 women. We detected 167 cases of breast cancer, that’s 4.5 per thousand and the national average is 3 per thousand.

“The importance of annual mammograms and early detection cannot be underscored enough. According to the American Cancer Society, breast cancer deaths could be lowered if women age 40 and older had an annual mammogram, an annual breast exam by a physician, and practiced monthly breast self-exams. A mammogram is valuable because it can identify breast abnormalities before they can be felt. In addition, it has been shown that early detection increases survival and treatment options. When cancers are detected early, survival rates are better than 95 percent,” added Dr. Conwell.

Dr. Conwell’s remarks were followed by Will McLeod, CEO of McLeod Regional Medical Center, who said, “Thank you for coming this morning to help us celebrate a service that is helping members of our community see more mornings like this. Today, we celebrate the tremendous impact that the McLeod Mobile Mammography Unit has made and will continue to make in the lives of our family, friends and neighbors. That celebration requires some thank you’s. Thank you to Dr. Conwell, Beth Kurilla and all of the staff that work tirelessly to ensure that this service is available in our region. Thank you to the McLeod Health Foundation, donors and its board members for your continued generosity and support of McLeod Health and services like the mobile mammography unit. We also thank all of the businesses and industries who have partnered with McLeod and scheduled the mobile unit for annual visits to provide this lifesaving health screening for their employees over the past 15 years. Together, we are making a meaningful difference in the early detection of breast cancer and saving more lives.”

Jill Bramblett, Executive Director of the McLeod Health Foundation, welcomed members of the Mobile Mammography Campaign Council to cut the ribbon with McLeod leadership. She concluded the event saying, “I recall when we put our first Mobile Mammography Unit on the road in January 2008, we visited a school in Hartsville during a teacher in-service day. One of the teachers undergoing the screening came up to me and said, ‘thank you so much for bringing this mobile unit to us. I have not had a mammogram in 10 years and if this unit had not come here today, I wouldn’t have had one for another 10 years.’ Her words demonstrated to us why it was so important to offer this service to the community. The many lives touched by the previous unit and our new mobile unit would not have been possible without the tremendous efforts of our Mobile Mammography Unit Campaign Council and our McLeod Health Foundation donors and sponsors. Thank you!”

Members of the McLeod Mobile Mammography Unit Campaign Council included Dr. Karen Hill, Chair; Joan Billheimer, Beverly Hazelwood, Kimberly Hyman, Jill Lewis, Doris Lockhart, Shirley Meiere, April Munn and Charisse Reichenbach.