THUNDER BAY — The Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre is getting $9.3 million from the province to support its cancer care services expansion.
The expansion will help connect more people in the region to live-saving radiation therapy closer to home.
“It’s obviously very exciting,” said Dr. Joseph Del Paggio, chief of oncology.
Thunder Bay-Atikokan MPP Kevin Holland was at the hospital for the announcement on Friday.
“It’s really going to improve the diagnostics and treatment for people that are dealing with cancer here in Thunder Bay closer to home, to avoid some of that travel that we have to experience otherwise.
“I think just the ability to provide that service here locally is going to be so much easier on the patient and on the families. It's really a testament to the work that's being done here at Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre and providing that quality patient care,” he said.
“We're expanding our linear accelerators now from two to three units,” said Del Paggio.
A linear accelerator, he explained, delivers high doses of radiation to tumours, effectively eradicating them while sparing the healthy tissue around the tumour.
“When you increase the capacity for this, then you'll have more patients being able to access this and potentially doing it in a quicker manner. They're spending less time here at the hospital and they're spending more time at home with their loved ones.
“That's really what it should be all about. It's great news for us for sure,” he said.
Del Paggio said radiation is a very old treatment, but he doesn’t think we’ll see it go away due to it’s effectiveness.
“I think what you'll see is machines being able to be programmed to finesse the delivery of radiation. The radiation itself is tried, tested and true and it's here to stay.”
The announcement is the second one this week at the hospital. Holland was joined by Health Minister Sylvia Jones on Monday to announce an expansion of mental health and addictions capacity in the emergency department.
“There's another example of what we're doing here locally to provide increased health care,” Holland said.
