Roswell Park rolls out Eddy, a mobile unit that will screen every Buffalo firefighter for lung cancer

“Let me introduce you to Eddy,” President and CEO Candace S. Johnson advised these gathered Tuesday on the Buffalo Fire Department’s Rescue 1 quarters on Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo.

Eddy is Roswell’s new mobile lung cancer screening unit – the scale of a tractor trailer – and its mission is in its identify: Early detection pushed to you. Funded partly by state {dollars}, Eddy has a CT scanner on board, which goals to convey lung cancer screening straight into underserved and high-risk communities. By selling entry, the hope is that extra folks will be screened for lung cancer.

“We wanted to make this life-saving cancer screening easier, more accessible and affordable,” Johnson mentioned. “We want everyone who needs to be screened to be screened. We have a tremendous opportunity here to save a lot of lives.”

The want is evident: Johnson mentioned that solely 5.7% of these eligible for lung cancer screening are literally screened. Compare that, she famous, to how greater than 90% of ladies get mammograms to test for breast cancer.

“Lung cancer is the number one cancer killer,” mentioned Mary Reid, Roswell’s head of cancer screening, survivorship and mentoring. “It kills more people than all the other major cancers combined, and it doesn’t have to be that way.”

To get Eddy on board, Roswell introduced a program that would permit every Buffalo firefighter to be screened for lung cancer by way of the mobile unit’s visits to firehouses within the metropolis.

Some research have discovered that firefighters face a 60% greater threat of creating lung cancer, although most firefighters don’t qualify for early detection of lung cancer primarily based on present federal pointers.

Roswell officers mentioned its program to screen Buffalo firefighters is the primary of its type in New York and one of many solely within the nation.

It’s a program that Garnell Whitfield, the previous Buffalo hearth commissioner, appreciates.

Speaking Tuesday at Jefferson Avenue firehouse quarters, Whitfield mentioned it was the primary time he had been to the firehouse since May 14, the day of the mass capturing only one block away on the Tops grocery retailer the place his mom, Ruth Whitfield, was one. of the ten folks killed within the assault.

It was a racist assault that pointed to Buffalo’s longstanding inequalities on a nationwide stage.

“The truth of the matter is firefighters and the community are underserved – not cared for in terms of lung cancer,” Whitfield mentioned. “None of them are getting the care they want when it comes to lung cancer and for Roswell to be right here and to supply that service, not solely to the fireplace division, however to this group, is a large deal. ”

“I’m certain it will assist save lives,” he added.

This is simply Eddy’s starting.

Roswell has vetted Buffalo firefighters for the previous two weeks and plans to vet the whole division, together with retirees, Reid mentioned.

The cancer heart can also be starting to schedule residents who’ve contacted to see if they’re eligible for screening. Those can go to roswellpark.org/eddy and fill out a kind to see in the event that they qualify for a mobile lung cancer screening.

If they do, Roswell will schedule an appointment with them. Roswell officers mentioned the screening is often coated by insurance coverage, but when a resident does not have insurance coverage and needs to pay out of pocket, Reid mentioned the cancer heart “sets a very low rate for that.”

Eddy is staffed with a radiology technician, a nurse, a doctor’s assistant and navigators to speak to sufferers being scanned. Back on the mothership on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, Roswell’s radiologists can learn the scan.

It was an effort that acquired a large enhance from the state.

This 12 months’s state funds supplied Roswell with a one-time funding of $4 million to amass mobile items for lung cancer screening and medical expertise. Reid mentioned the plan is to convey Eddy throughout the eight counties of Western New York, from Niagara County to Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties.

State Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes mentioned it was cash properly spent.

“People say, you know, you bring government money,” she mentioned on Tuesday. “No, I’m bringing back tax payers money. This money belongs to the people because it was given by the people. And when we can take the money that people give us to provide the service that benefits everyone, than we are actually doing what we have to do. We do our job.”

Peoples-Stokes additionally reminded attendees of the place they stood, simply a few blocks away from closely traveled Route 33 and the fumes that have been pouring into close by neighborhoods for a long time.

This means Eddy has a lot of labor to do, and a lot of individuals to succeed in.

That’s why Johnson believes Roswell and its new mobile unit have a possibility to “change the trajectory of lung cancer in our communities” and hopefully save lives.

“This is just the beginning,” she mentioned. “We’d like to see a lot of Eddy’s driving around all of New York State, because believe me, there are very few Eddy’s in the entire country that do.”