The Breast Cancer Supportive Care Foundation (BCSCF) provides innovative service programs beneficial to supporting the recovery of breast cancer patients as they transition from illness to healing and health.
The mission of the Breast Cancer Supportive Care Foundation is to enable breast cancer patients to thrive from diagnosis through treatment and beyond.
This mission serves a greater vision, to lead in the design and delivery of an innovative model of care for breast cancer patients.
Led by a multidisciplinary team of health care professionals specialized in breast cancer care, BCSCF provides community-based programs to help breast cancer survivors deal with the psychosocial issues and delayed physical side effects arising from having had cancer, surgery and treatment. Where the existing healthcare system and intervention services focus on the acute cancer survival period, BCSCF focuses beyond treatment to survivorship and, a model of care called “thrivorship”, assisting patients to return to full and vibrant lives in their families and communities.
The Breast Cancer Supportive Care Foundation is managed by a volunteer
Board of Directors that raises funds and oversees services provided by
a team of medical practitioners. The Calgary community has strongly
embraced the programs offered by BCSCF and to date 1306 breast cancer
patients and their family members have accessed services, which are
currently only available to residents of Calgary and Southern Alberta.
BCSCF operates independently of the provincial or regional health care
systems. To date, current funding for programs at BCSCF has been
received to date primarily from charitable community support.
The following diagram visually depicts two core functions of Breast Cancer Supportive Care: transitioning patients along the continuum of breast cancer care while integrating
practical and relevant community resources as required to meet patient
needs. Through a patient-centred approach to care, patients are given
the time and expertise they need to manage as effectively as possible
the many-faceted challenges of cancer diagnosis, treatment and recovery.
