Women’s Health Night Helps Raise Awareness
Nearly 250 individuals registered for women’s health night at the Gateway Church of the Nazarene held on Tuesday night.
Oskaloosa, Iowa – Mahaska Health continued its women’s night health program on Tuesday night at Gateway Church of the Nazarene.
Grace Sereg with Mahaska Health spoke about the health night, saying the event has become more all-encompassing than in years past, becoming more about women’s health in general.
The speaker panel included Melissa Lamb addressing allergies, and Tim Breon with surgery. Also speaking was Greg Kronenberg about pain management.
Other speakers included Julie Hartke from Radiology and Mark Zacharjas from Primary Care.
“It’s a great event for women of all ages to grab their girlfriends and come out. It’s a free event, so we like to get the community involved,” added Sereg.
The focus is also on helping women detect breast cancer early. “When breast cancer is detected early, often through a mammogram, an affected woman has a 98% survival rate,” added Sereg.
“We look forward to this every year,” said Sereg of the nearly 250 individuals who registered to attend.
Kevin DeRonde, the CEO of Mahaska Health, explained that hosting such a program is important to the hospital and that helping to raise cancer awareness is one of the main goals of the evening. “We also want to honor those who are going through cancer, [and] raise knowledge.”
Besides the information available to those in attendance, there were free cancer screenings and information on how to obtain free mammograms.
DeRonde says that he sees the hospital’s support for events like this continuing into the future and even expanding upon such activities. “We want to be more out in the community, and so we’re looking forward to more events like this.”
Those services available at Mahaska Health include cancer care and infusion center. Dr. Bradley Hiatt from MOHA provides those services locally.
Other tools include the radiology team that utilizes some of the newest technology in MRI. There is also the CT scanner and mammography, which provide all digital images.
“Our primary care group is really focusing in on population health and wellness exams and proactively having our patients come in for the wellness screenings,” added DeRonde. “So there is a lot of neat aspects that Mahaska Health is focusing on.”
