Gateway to Hope

In 2023, served more than 470 individuals from across Missouri and southern Illinois. Our professional staff was in communication with our patients on a monthly - and often weekly, daily - basis. The results of our work are:

- Only 8% of Gateway to Hope recipients report skipping medications or treatments, making them 4 times less likely to do so in comparison to their peers across the country.
- 90% of recipients report being focused on treatment because of the support they receive from Gateway to Hope.
- Recipients of our assistance have, on average, a 35% overall reduction in distress from the beginning to the end of our assistance.
- 100% of program participants who receive financial assistance for their health insurance remain insured during treatment.

The impact of our services is clear: we are making a difference, removing barriers to healthcare and ensuring women are not forced to make heart-wrenching decisions such as whether to seek treatment or whether to feed their families. Instead, they complete treatment and can live a life full of hope.

There are hundreds of more women in St. Louis and across our state who are faced with these decisions every year. These women delay treatment and too often succumb to this treatable disease because they cannot afford to access the care they need. Breast cancer treatment can cost, on average, more than $800,000. Without adequate insurance coverage, that toxic cost burden falls to the patient. Often, logistical burdens mount and childcare costs, loss of employment during treatment, lack of transportation, inaccessibility of facilities and the overwhelming emotional burden of navigating care all get in the way of focusing on healing.

This issue of inadequate access to healthcare is one that is pervasive across our nation. However, for St. Louis and Missouri, we have an especially urgent issue to address: in St. Louis County, a black woman is two times more likely to die of breast cancer than a white woman. Black women ages 18-45 - the women who are carrying and raising the next generation of this region's citizens, scholars, and leaders - are four times more likely to die of breast cancer than their white counterparts. In fact, in this region, the mortality rate and the late-stage breast cancer diagnosis rate disparities between black and white women are the worst in the entire nation. For those of us on the front lines of breast cancer care, as Gateway to Hope has been for 15 years, this is unconscionable.

The good news is there is evidence that this problem has a solution. By applying our GTH programs on a larger scale, and with greater collaboration with our community partners, we can make great strides towards finding a solution.

With approximately 6,000 new cases of breast cancer diagnosed across Missouri each year, including 400 black women diagnosed with breast cancer in St. Louis alone every year, the scale of the challenge we face is daunting but it is manageable - if we act with urgency now. Because of your investment in us, Gateway to Hope is moving with that urgency, and is committed to reducing these breast cancer disparities and to ensuring all women - regardless of their background or circumstance - can access the care they need to face this disease. We will continue to make a difference through our programs for patients, through our community education efforts and through our partnerships with other community providers who are also on the front lines of this fight. Today we still believe, as we did 15 years ago, that no woman should ever have to choose between life-saving care and basic needs.