Blessing Health to offer free cancer screening kits beginning Monday at multiple locations

QUINCY — In recognition of National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, Blessing Health is providing free, take-home colorectal cancer screening kits to the public at locations in west central Illinois and northeast Missouri and by mail beginning Monday, March 18.

Of the more than 153,000 people who are expected to be diagnosed with colorectal cancer this year, only about 40 percent will be diagnosed in the earliest stage, when the survival rate is 90 percent. That is because there often are no identifiable symptoms of the disease in its early stage. Identifiable symptoms typically appear once colorectal cancer has spread and the survival rate decreases. That fact makes screening a key action in decreasing the risk of colorectal cancer.

While supplies last, kits will be available at:

• Blessing Resource Center, 420 N. 34th, Quincy
• Illini Rural Health Clinic, Pittsfield
• Blessing Health Hannibal
• Blessing clinics in Golden, Mount Sterling, Hamilton and Warsaw, Ill.; Bowling Green, Kahoka, Monroe City and Palmyra, Mo.
• Clark County Health Department, Kahoka, Mo.
• Knox County Health Department, Edina, Mo.
• Lewis County Health Department, Monticello, Mo.
• Monroe County Health Department, Paris, Mo.

Kits can be picked up at the Blessing Cancer Center by appointment. Call 217-223-8400, ext. 7718 or email stephanie.willey@blessinghealth.org for more information.

The kits also are available by mail. Go to blessinghealth.org/colonmonth for more information on that option as well as a list of kit pick-up locations and related information regarding colorectal cancer care.