Easy access to specialized health care is tough in rural areas. It can take months for referrals and eventually when you do get an appointment you often have to travel 3 hours to Thunder Bay. Unless of course you happen to be around when the Screen for Life Coach is in town.

This high tech mobile health screening bus travels around the north shores of Lake Superior, bringing the clinic to your town. The service has expanded over the years and now conducts tests for breast cancer, cervical cancer and colorectal cancer, usually without the waiting time involved in referrals.

Kim Krause of the Schreiber Media Centre wanted to find out more about the the big bus in the back yard of the recreation centre. It is truly a travelling medical centre on wheels. Unfortunately due to COVID restrictions still being in place we were denied access to the interior but from the photographs we received it is quite impressive that such a state of art facility is hiding inside this vehicle.

Michelle Opaski and Donna Preater are the only 2 staff members operating this bus during this trip to Schreiber and we wanted to know more about the services it provide and also to know which one of the ladies drives the bus!

Michelle is a registered mammographer with the Screen for Life coach. Originally her background included working in X-ray and CT scanning but she was looking to get out of the hospital environment and enrolled in mammography courses. She goes on to stress the importance of people seeking a career in the health industry. One of the benefits of her job has been able to travel around the area as a means to break the constrictions of COVID lockdowns.
Her travelling partner on the bus is Donna Preater, a registered nurse who has had extra training not only in screening for cancers but is also the bus driver. It’s an accomplishment she holds with pride and you can tell she is in her element when out on the road behind the wheel.

While Michelle primarily does screening for breast cancer, Donna does the cervical and colorectal side of the service. Her upbeat spirit and extensive experience goes a long way in relaxing the clients she sees. She also advocates for early screening as a means for improving a patients’ outcome as this early detection can lead to higher survival rates in some cases. 

Cancer Care Ontario is responsible for the funding of the service and works in conjunction with the Prevention and Screening clinical services of the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre that administers the project, including the bookings and scheduling of the mobile service and staff.

The service is spread over a very large geographic area around the north shore and includes first communities as well. Obviously weather conditions play a role in the scheduling of the service and as a result they are the most active during the months of April until November. Smaller more remote communities might only receive this service every two years depending on requests.

Bringing a service like this to outside communities makes rural areas feel more connected to the rest of the world and having Michelle and Donna drop in brings that extra bit of happiness to the people needing such a valuable service.