Cancer patients on Vancouver Island will no longer have to travel to the Lower Mainland for PET/CT scans.
Premier John Horgan and Health Minister Adrian Dix announced on Monday that the BC Cancer Centre in Victoria will take delivery of a new state-of-the-art PET/Scanner suite.
“Timely, effective diagnostics are a critically important part of cancer care and treatment,” said Horgan.
“This means cancer patients on Vancouver Island will receive better, faster diagnostic services and care, closer to home.”
Its estimated more than 1,900 patients on Vancouver Island had to travel to the Lower Mainland for cancer-related PET/CT scans in 2018.
The new scanner is currently operational and is expected to provide over 2,200 scans per year.
The province says the total cost of the project is $6.5 million. Much of that, $5.3 million, is being provided by the BC Cancer Foundation.
The organzation raised funds with support from more than 3500 Vancouver Island donors, including $2 million from Nanaimo’s Gordon Heys and $1 million from Thrifty Foods.
Heys, a cancer survivor, is responsible for the largest private gift ever donated in support of BC Cancer in Victoria.
The new facility will be named the Gordon Heys Family PET/CT Suite.
CHEK News
