CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Those at Vandalia Health and Charleston Area Medical Center are continuing their initiative of meeting patients where they are.
CAMC officials held a ribbon-cutting and dedication ceremony Tuesday for two new additions to their mobile medicine fleet known Medicine in Motion– a 36-foot mobile mammography unit and a 48-foot mobile lung CT unit.
Funded by Aetna Better Health of West Virginia, Aetna Better Health CEO Todd White said both mobile units are comprehensive care clinics that will bring medical assistance to rural, under-served communities. 
“Everyone deserves access to quality health care, regardless of their circumstances or location,” said White. “These mobile units will bring quality care to rural, under-resourced communities, improving the health and wellbeing of more individuals and families across the state.”
The mammography unit will provide women with on-the-spot breast exams and mammograms as well as telemedicine services.
CAMC Breast Center Director Melissa Bohan told MetroNews that transportation is often one of the biggest challenges for patients in being able to receive the screenings they need.
“So, this is going to be a great way that we can get more out into the rural areas and offer people those screenings in those areas where people would otherwise not be able to make it in and get those completed,” she said.
She said the mammography unit will be an opportunity for them to find different types of breast cancers sooner.
Bohan said national statistics show that only about 45% of women get their breast screenings completed while 1 in 8 women develop breast cancer at some point in their life, even without having a family history of it.
She said this new mobile unit will make it much easier and should encourage more women to get their mammograms.
“As long as they are 40 and older and not having any problems, just like anywhere else, they can schedule in a certain area wherever we’re going to be and we’ll be happy to take care of them,” Bohan said. “If they don’t make it on the schedule we will do our best to work them in.”
The second mobile unit that CAMC cut the ribbon on Tuesday, the lung CT screening unit will provide CT screenings in those rural communities.
CAMC Division Chief for Pulmonary Critical Care Rayan Ihle said acquiring this mobile unit was based on a significant need in West Virginia for increased lung screenings.
“Right now there are over a quarter million patients in West Virginia that are eligible for lung cancer screening and only 5-percent of those have actually gotten lung cancer screening,” Ihle said. “So, it’s really important for West Virginians to have access to the care they need that will help improve their lives and improve the mortality from lung cancer.”
CAMC Thoracic Surgeon Sandeep Kashyap said the machine built into the mobile unit will specifically scan for small nodules in the lungs and can detect if there’s any cancer in those nodules.
He said lung cancer screenings saves lives.
“Lung cancer kills more Americans than breast, colon and prostate cancer combined every year, so it’s really important for the patients as the only way we can cure lung cancer is to find it early,” said Kashyap.
He said if it’s early stage cancer they can treat it early and patients will have a much better rate of survival.
Smokers between the ages of 50 and 77 should talk to their doctors and see if they qualify for the lung cancer screening.
These two new medical mobile units at CAMC are additions to the fleet that Vandalia Health and CAMC have been acquiring since 2022 when they welcomed the first Mobile Medical Unit through a $750,000 earmark from federal CARES Act funding.
Earlier this year, CAMC also acquired their Community Care Unit that provides at-risk individuals with addiction care and women’s medicine. They received this bus through a $275,000 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration grant given by the State Bureau for Behavioral Health.