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Comprehensive, Compassionate Support for Latinas with Cancer

About 15 years ago, a nurse called the Hispanic Health council searching for a Spanish-language support group for a patient diagnosed with cancer. It was then that the Hispanic Health Council recognized the tremendous gaps in support for Latino residents of Greater Hartford diagnosed with cancer. In 1999, with leadership from the council and grassroots community support, the DIVAS “Damas Informadas, Valientes y Airosas Superando el Cancer” or “Informed, Brave, Lively Women who are Overcoming Cancer” started with only enough money for a 10-hour-a week consultant to run the only Spanish-language support program for Latinas diagnosed with all forms of cancer. Sotera Dávila, the patient who pointed out the gap to her cancer nurse a few years earlier, was a charter member.

The DIVAS Latina Cancer Support program has since grown from the Hartford area’s only Spanish-language cancer support group into a comprehensive case management program that includes patient education, transportation, medical interpretation, social support, and referral to other medical services for impoverished Latinas diagnosed with cancer.

Over the years, the DIVAS program has cultivated strong relationships with the region’s three large cancer centers: Helen and Harry Gray Cancer Center at Hartford Hospital; Saint Francis/Mount Sinai Regional Cancer Center; and The Carole and Ray Neag Cancer Center at the University of Connecticut Health Center. Recognizing that early detection offers the best chance for long-term survival, DIVAS also has established a formal agreement with the Partnership for Breast Care at Hartford Hospital which enables the HHC to offer mobile mammography in its building – a location that is comfortable and convenient for its target population. For the past two years, the HHC also has coordinated early detection care for women referred by the Malta House of Care, a mobile health clinic that provides free care to the uninsured and underinsured in Hartford’s lowest-income neighborhoods.