Central Coast clinic is offering free cancer screenings. Here’s how to sign up

A Central Coast medical clinic is offering free cancer screening to community members who are under-insured or uninsured.

Patients can be screened at Dignity Health Central Coast’s Mission Hope Cancer Center in Santa Maria for different types of cancer that are highly treatable, particularly with early detection.

Skin cancer screening will take place Saturday, Sept. 16.

There will be prostate cancer screening on Saturday, Sept. 30, and breast cancer and cervical cancer screening on Saturday, Oct. 14.

“We’re offering these screenings as part of our commitment to community outreach for our rural area,” Cynthia Maldonado, outreach and registry supervisor at Mission Hope, said in a news release. “We know that routine cancer screenings can save lives.”

Maldonadol added that Mission Hope is accredited by the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer, which means “we raise standards and improve outcomes for cancer patients, with the ultimate goal of catching cancer earlier when it is highly treatable.”

Appointments for the cancer screenings are filling up and walk-in appointments are not available.

Call 805-219-4673 to schedule an appointment at Mission Hope Cancer Center, 1325 E. Church St. in Santa Maria.

What are guidelines for cancer screenings?

The guidelines for screening for different types of cancers vary, according to a screening guidelines brochure by Dignity Health.

Yearly mammograms for breast cancer should be happening annually by age 40. Breast self exams and annual clinical exams by a health professional should be happening by age 25, Dignity Health said.

Every three years people ages 25 to 29 should have a Pap smear to check for cervical cancer. By age 30, Pap smears should happen every three years and HPV tests every five years, the guidelines said.

By age 45, the prostate should be checked with a digital rectal exam and a prostate-specific antigen test every year to two years until age 75.