Growing up, Pam Burnett never heard about relatives or friends who had breast cancer, which led her to think Black women didn’t get the disease. So when her doctor told her she needed a mammogram, Burnett was confused.
She was also unsure how to pay for it. Then living in Opa-locka, she was between jobs and had no health insurance. Then she learned about the Mary Brogan Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program.
Funded by the state and $4.6 million annually from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the program helps uninsured and under-insured women get cancer screenings. Burnett, then 40, got her first mammogram through the program, and she found out that Black women do get breast cancer when she was diagnosed with it.
Her experience led her to create a nonprofit group, The Beautiful Gate Cancer Support and Resource Center. More than 20 years later, the group goes to churches throughout the state for MASS — Mammograms After Sunday Service — stressing the importance of yearly mammograms and helping to screen women who might be eligible for assistance from the Brogan program.
It is available to women between ages 50 and 64 who lack necessary insurance and earn less than 200% of the federal poverty level. Earlier this year, the Florida Legislature increased the state’s contribution from $1.83 million to $3 million. Under the previous funding levels, less than 10% of eligible Florida women were served.
“Women may not be aware that these are the options,” says Susan Harbin, senior government relations director for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network in Florida who advocated for the funding increase.
Mammography leads to early detection, and early detection saves both money and the patient. “You’re getting your return on investment there,” Harbin says. “But you have to have the screening resources for that to happen. If you don’t have insurance and you’re paying out of pocket and you’ve got lots of other competing priorities in your life, it might not always be the first thing taken care of.”
The screening program is named for Mary Brogan, wife of Jeb Bush’s first lieutenant governor, Frank Brogan, who was just 44 years old when she died of breast cancer in 1999. Current Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis survived breast cancer after being diagnosed in 2021 at age 41. Gov. Ron DeSantis has made cancer treatment and research a priority.
“Thousands of patients ultimately will benefit from this additional focus they’ve given,” Harbin says.
Burnett’s campaign to spread the word also helps. The Beautiful Gate, named for Acts 3:2, in which the Apostles Peter and John saved a crippled man through faith in Jesus, conducted nearly three dozen MASS programs in the past year, underwritten by the Florida Breast Cancer Foundation. They are offered in English, Spanish and Creole.
The funding increase is non-recurring, meaning it could fall back to $1.83 million next year if lawmakers don’t renew it. Harbin wants to persuade lawmakers to make the increase permanent.
“With this additional money, the program will have more resources to not only do the actual services, but provide care coordination and outreach, try to find additional women and try to make sure they’re aware this is an additional option,” Harbin says.