Mobile mammography coach receives donation from Ford

RONAN — Employees of Don Aadsen Ford in Ronan awaited the arrival of the Winkley Women’s Center Mobile Mammography Coach on Friday morning. The 40-foot coach provides free mammograms, breast ultrasounds and bone density screenings to communities throughout western Montana, and was the recipient of a $25,000 grant from Ford Motor Company’s “Goodwill Initiative.”

The grant from the Ford Fund is used to cover the cost of operations of the coach, thereby keeping needed dollars directed to mammogram screenings. The Winkley Women’s Center is based in Kalispell and in conjunction with Kalispell Regional Hospital provides free weekly screenings in Malta, Fort Benneton, Chester, Choteau, Conrad, Cut Bank, Browning, Polson, St. Ignatius and Eureka.

Gordon Henrickson, owner of Don Aadsen Ford was the driving force behind the donation to the center. Henrickson said that he knew the Winkleys, the late Jerry Winkley and his wife Jane Winkley, the founder of the center.  Jane Winkley was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999 and during that time Henrickson said,  “she became very close with her doctors and her radiologist at Kalispell Regional Hospital.”

Winkley had access to healthcare in her battle with cancer, but  throughout her treatment thought of those less fortunate. Winkley came up with the idea for the coach as a way to reach those in the community without the resources available for a screening.

“Jane Winkley had a vision,” Niccole Caban lead mammographer at the Winkley Women’s Center said, “that no woman should have to wait” for the results of her mammogram.

Winkley donated $1 million to purchase and equip the coach with a mammography, sonogram and dexa (bone density)  machine. The equipment is all digitalized and allows for earlier detection, Caban said. The coach travels on a regular schedule and provides patients in rural areas “real-time” diagnostic work-up allowing for clearer images and faster results.

“Sometimes patients would have to wait several weeks to receive the results of their mammogram.” Henrickson said, “with the Winkley staff the results are transported via satellite immediately to the radiologist and doctors in Kalispell.”

“The coach produces patients with an immediate response so that they know their results before they get off the bus” Henrickson added, “now I don’t know about you, but I would sure want to know my results right away!”

Margie White, a Winkley Women’s Center mammographer, sonographer and dexa technician, said that the coach staff travels from Malta to Eureka providing testing to clinics in those areas.  When asked as to an estimate of the number of patients who have received screenings,

“I do  somewhere between 3,000-4,000 mammograms a year,” she said, “as an entity I’m not sure.”  White has been performing screenings with the center since the coach became operational in March 2008.

Since 2008 the center has conducted 10,632 mammograms, including 971 breast ultrasounds. In total Caban said,“we have detected 58 cases of breast cancer.”

Early detection highly increases the chances of beating breast cancer and the Winkley Women’s Center Mobile Mammography Coach staff is doing their best to provide western Montana with access to free and local screenings.