The Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE —
The staff at Providence Medical Center in Terre Haute marked the 10th National Wear Red Day on Friday by sporting its own red shirts to build awareness of heart disease as the top killer of women.
About 40 staff members of the medical firm paid $5 to wear jeans to work for the day to go with their red shirts customized with white hearts and black stethoscopes.
Providence staff member Debbie Hadley, who helped organize the effort to raise awareness of heart health, said the fundraiser brought in about $260 that will be donated to the American Heart Association.
“We decided that since this is the 10th year, we wanted to do something more,” she said of the awareness effort. Providence Medical Center has participated in Go Red for Women for several years, she said.
Since Providence is a practice of seven cardiologists, it makes sense to focus on heart health, Hadley said, and even more so to participate in the AHA’s Go Red for Women because all of the support staff are women.
Hadley said that breast cancer often gets more awareness for women’s health, but heart disease is the biggest killer of women. It is more deadly than all forms of cancer combined.
The AHA estimates that 43 million American women are affected by heart disease, and 90 percent of women have one or more risk factors for developing heart disease. Since 1984, more women than men have died each year from heart disease, and the gap between men and women’s survival continues to widen.
Heart disease causes one in three deaths of American women each year, according to AHA statistics, while one in 31 American women dies from breast cancer each year.
Hadley said that the staff at Providence Medical are proud of their philanthropic efforts. In additional Go Red for Women, the staff has done other fundraisers to donate to community projects such as Ryves Hall, 14th and Chestnut Center, and the Tribune-Star Christmas Basket Fund.
For more information about the AHA’s Go Red For Women movement, go online to www.GoRedForWomen.org or go to the group’s Facebook page.
