For many women without health insurance or from immigrant families, regular breast exams and pap smears are anything but a routine health practice.  Sometimes the very idea of going to the clinic for an examination is both intimidating and even associated with illness or shame. 

KKV’s Super Auntie Miriama Samifua “Mili” has been doing patient outreach around women’s health for KKV since 1992, following in the footsteps of our community aides in the early 1970s.  A longtime member of KKV’s Maternal Child Health staff, Mili is a Family Planning Community Health Educator who knows how to get women talking.  She regularly walks the corridors of KKV’s Wellness Center and Judd Clinic to talk with women who are waiting for appointments.  Her goal is to educate, navigate, and track women as they come in for care. 

Mili, who is bilingual in Samoan and English, often works with MCH Medical Assistant Raimy Kansou and Elder Care Outreach Katary Sop, who both speak Chuukese, and more recently with Today Maddison, a navigator and interpreter based at KKV's KPT clinic who speaks fluent Marshallese. Mili and her team use their relationship building skills to set other women at ease.

A few years ago, Mili encountered a Tongan woman waiting for her son’s dental appointment in KKV’s Wellness Center.  She sat down and started to talk story, learning the woman had no insurance and wanted to get a checkup but didn’t know how she could do this. Mili helped her get an appointment and insurance coverage. A year later, the woman is still a KKV patient and is now helping Mili bring other Tongan women to the clinic for care. 

Mili often works with Katary, Raimy, and Today to interpret for women.  Recently Today brought a group of Marshallese women to the clinic at KPT for an education session about breast and cervical cancer.  The information they provide includes signs and symptoms of cancer, how to do a self-exam, how to access a mammogram (KKV has a relationship with the Queens Medical Center for this through the State’s Breast Cancer and Cervical Cancer Program (BCCCP)), and how to get other types of assistance.  Mili has sometimes come along with a patient to an exam room to interpret for her, and sometimes even to Queens for the mammogram.  KKV’s van can be used by women who need transportation assistance to get to their appointments. 

Some of the places where Mili and her team connect with women include local churches in Kalihi, where they make presentations after the services or are invited to women’s meetings. The approach is based on one woman at a time and an effort to build a trusting relationship so that women feel confident and loved as they seek care for themselves at KKV.