Message from Parker Jones
Published Thursday, March 30, 2023
Message from Parker Jones
Chair, Board of Directors, Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation
Closer-to-home care is essential, but that’s especially true for cancer. Here’s why.
One of the most common side-effects of cancer – and one of the hardest things to treat – is fear. You can’t find fear on a CT scan or an MRI. You can’t overwhelm it with medications. You can’t shrink fear with radiation. But what does help is having the love and support of family and friends around you on your cancer journey. Think of the most technologically advanced, state-of-the-art cancer clinic you can imagine in the world, and it won’t have a better “treatment” for your fear than staying right here at home.
As we head into April, which is Cancer Awareness month, I wanted you to be aware that proceeds from the Thunder Bay 50/50 Draw and Northern Cancer Fund are being used to help fund upgrades in our Radiation Therapy Program including:
- Patient positioners to enhance treatment precision and patient comfort
- Software upgrades for enhanced treatment monitoring
- IT upgrades to support those software upgrades
- New software to help integrate MRI images with CT images to help locate tumours with greater precision
- Radiation detector upgrades to ensure safety of treatment
These radiation detector upgrades are crucial for patient safety. Today’s computers can calculate the amount of radiation to maximize the amount of radiation that hits the tumour and minimizes the amount that hits healthy tissue. But it’s the detectors that ensure the treatment the computer calculates is actually the treatment the patient receives. It’s an amazing piece of technology that ensures patient safety and gives doctors confirmation that the treatment they prescribe is the treatment the patient gets.
New technology is becoming available every year, but advances are useless if we can’t purchase them. That’s where generous donors like you can help. The Foundation will continue to fund numerous upgrades for our Cancer Centre from donations to the Northern Cancer Fund and proceeds from the Thunder Bay 50/50 Draw. Please show your support by purchasing Thunder Bay 50/50 tickets at ThunderBay5050.ca or by donating to the Northern Cancer Fund online (healthsciencesfoundation.ca/donate-now). You can also call our Donation Centre directly at (807) 345-HOPE (4673) to make your donation by phone.
Thank you for helping us ensure we have the best cancer care possible, right here in Thunder Bay.
Parker Jones