Gateway to Hope’s mission is to remove barriers to affordable, timely, quality healthcare, empowering people with breast cancer to face the disease and focus on healing.
After encountering countless patients who delayed treatment because of financial hardship, two St. Louis physicians - Dr. Marlys Schuh and Dr. David Caplin - founded Gateway to Hope. In 2005, the organization began by providing one uninsured/underinsured breast cancer patient per month with comprehensive care donated by their network of more than 100 St. Louis area physicians. Over time, given the ever-changing healthcare landscape and increasing community need, the organization has evolved and moved away from delivering donated care to a model that provides service to hundreds of women annually and has greater potential for sustainable scale and systems-level impact throughout Missouri and Southern Illinois. We envision a day when all people diagnosed with breast cancer have the resources they need to face the disease and focus on healing.