CENTER AIDS WOMEN IN CANCER FIGHT; LOW-INCOME CLIENTS GIVEN FREE SCREENING.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Daily News Staff Writer

Since its creation four years ago, an outreach program geared to provide free breast and cervical cancer screening to low-income women who lack health insurance has served more than 400 women.

For providing breast cancer education and access to early-detection services to women over 40, the Center for Healthy Aging Antelope Valley Outreach Program has received $29,000 from the Avon Breast Health Access Fund, the third time it has won the grant.

``They have a lot of expertise in reaching to this particular community of older people,'' said Patricia Sterling, manager of Avon's breast cancer awareness crusade. ``They've got a proven track record. They have demonstrated the ability to be successful in the past, and we funded them again.''

The center, which operates a clinic at High Desert Hospital, was among 213 applicants and 20 grant recipients.

The money will be used to pay staff and office expenses, said Joan Foor, a registered nurse and American Cancer Society volunteer who coordinates the program.

Foor helped start the program in 1993 after she was contacted by the Santa Monica-based center, asking whether the Antelope Valley needed breast cancer screening services.

``We have a lot of women of poverty level between the ages of 40 and 65 who don't have health plans and are falling in the cracks,'' Foor said. ``Once they're 65, they get covered by Medicare.''

The women who are seen in the program are the unemployed, widows, part-time workers or those who have lost their health insurance because they were laid off from work, Foor said.

They come from Lancaster, Palmdale and as far away as California City, Lake Isabella and Ridgecrest, Foor said.

Ilene Rominger, 61, of Lancaster has been participating in the program for three or four years. Once a year, she gets a Pap smear, breast exam and mammogram.

``I think it's a good idea, especially for people like me. I am, first of all, low-income and self-supporting,'' Rominger said. ``These are tests that I would not be able to have otherwise.''

Rominger said she has no health insurance and works two part-time jobs, one as a cafeteria substitute for the Lancaster School District and the other as a demonstrator who hands out product samples at a local Costco store.

``They are very caring,'' she said. ``I like them because they make me feel like they care.''

The program initially set up a clinic in a school in Lake Los Angeles, but moved two months later to High Desert Hospital, Foor said.

At the clinic, women receive a clinical breast examination and are taught how to do a self-exam. They are then sent for a mammogram at Valley Technological Services in Lancaster.

The program usually sees women ages 40 and older but will make an exception for younger women if they have a history of cancer or if they find a lump in their breast.

Cervical cancer screening services are available for women over 50 who meet income guidelines.

For information or an appointment, call the American Cancer Society at [phone].

Breast cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer deaths for all women and the leading cause of death in women ages 40 to 55, experts say. Thirty percent to 40 percent of those deaths could be prevented, they add, if women practiced the three-step recommendations for early detection: annual mammograms beginning at age 40, annual clinical breast exams and monthly breast self-examinations.

However, less than half of the women comply, according to the American Cancer Society.