Tomeka Harps hadn’t seen a doctor in five years, despite a history of abnormal Pap tests that showed precancerous cells in her cervix. The mother of three didn’t have health insurance and found her medical appointments at the community health clinic to be inconvenient and impersonal.
“It was just a hassle and it took so much time,” says the 34-year-old Brandon, Mississippi, resident. “You never had one-on-one with the doctor in a personal way. They didn’t know me from the man in the moon, so I just stopped going.”
But Harps never misses a Sunday service at New Horizon Church in Jackson. When a nurse in her congregation mentioned a cancer screening event that offered same-day results at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) Cancer Institute clinic in Jackson, Harps put the event on her calendar. The free event—which featured breast and cervical cancer screenings and melanoma skin checks—also provided lunch, entertainment for children, an opportunity to meet with a financial adviser, and cooking and exercise demonstrations.
After her Pap test, Harps found herself waiting for the results. “I thought they forgot about me,” she says, noting that people she knew from church had come and gone. That’s when she was escorted into a room and told she had cervical cancer.
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