The free breast and cervical cancer screenings at East Missouri Action Agency are helping save lives, said Kathy Blevins, advanced women's-health-care-nurse practitioner.

The Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening Control Project began at the agency about a year and a half ago sponsored by grant money from the Missouri Department of Health and Centers for Disease Control. It was designed for Missouri women at or below 200 percent of the poverty level.

For example, the mother of a family of four drawing $30,000 yearly would qualify. Anyone on Medicaid or Medicare automatically qualifies.

Women 18 and older may receive free pap smears and pelvic examinations, and women 40 and older may receive free mammograms and breast examinations.

Blevins said she has examined women who haven't had any sort of cancer screening for 10 years.

"They have money for their kids and money for their families, and if there's any left over they will take care of themselves," she said. "It costs so much to pay for medical treatment when people are sick, there isn't much left over for wellness."

Many of the women going to East Missouri Action Agency's family planning clinic have been referred to the screening program. Blevins said she has discovered women with irregular pap smears in danger of cervical cancer who needed treatments.

"We have barely scratched the surface of women who need pap smears and haven't received them," she said.

Blevins found three women with irregular mammograms who needed additional examinations. All three came up negative for cancer.

In the first year of the program, East Missouri Action Agency was contracted to see 150 women and saw that many or more at monthly clinics.

Brochures with additional information are available at the agency at 1111 Linden.