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Southlake celebrates official Topping-off on the Stronach Regional Cancer Centre

Newmarket, Ontario - December 18, 2008 – With the Holiday season well underway, Southlake did its own bit of celebrating today with the official topping-off of the Hospital’s radiation bunkers as part of the Stronach Regional Cancer Centre at Southlake. This final pour represents the last step in the completion of the outside structure of the four-storey Centre, allowing construction crews to move inside to begin mechanical and electrical work. President and CEO Dan Carriere, Roseanne Pegler, Executive Lead, Regional Cancer Program, and Southlake radiation patient Ron Bayes helped to pour the last bit of concrete to top-off the centre.

The Stronach Regional Cancer Centre at Southlake will serve as the regionally designated radiation treatment centre for the 1.2 million people living in York Region and south Simcoe County. For the very first time, residents will have access to radiation therapy closer to home, as opposed to having to travel to Toronto to receive these essential services.

 “We’ve worked tirelessly over the past 15 years to lay the groundwork to make this centre a reality,” said Dan Carriere. “Today’s final pour moves us one step closer to offering one of the most advanced cancer care services available in Canada for the residents of York Region and south Simcoe County.”

Construction on the Cancer Centre is on schedule with a target completion date of Fall 2009, aiming to accept the first patients in November 2009.

On opening, the Cancer Centre will boast an expanded 23-bed chemotherapy unit, two out-patient clinics, designated space for clinical drug trials, and three radiation treatment rooms. Each room will be equipped with image-guided radiation therapy and Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy (VMAT), both considered the “gold standard” in radiation therapy equipment. This sophisticated equipment will enable the healthcare team to target the area requiring treatment more accurately and precisely. For patients, it will mean that their individual treatments will take significantly less time, and their risk of experiencing side-effects will be reduced. Impressively, Southlake will be the first cancer centre in Ontario to be fully VMAT-enabled.

Five radiation oncologists, four radiation physicists, and 28 radiation therapists will have the capacity to provide radiation therapy to 1,250 patients in its first year and the ability to accommodate over 50,000 new patient visits by 2012. 

In order to help meet the needs of its patients until the Cancer Centre opens, Southlake opened an interim Radiation Oncology Clinic in May of this year. The Clinic provides treatment consultations and follow-up for its cancer patients, and facilitates access for the delivery of radiation therapy at Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) until Southlake’s own radiation facilities are open next fall.

As part of this Clinic, a complimentary shuttle bus service was introduced in July to operate between Southlake and PMH for Southlake’s existing radiation therapy patients. In December, the Hospital acquired two new shuttle buses, thanks to the generous support of an anonymous donor. Southlake hopes to continue to offer the service for the next year to help reduce the financial, emotional, and physical burden that many Southlake patients and their families face when commuting to Toronto for treatment.

As one of the first patients to access the shuttle bus service, radiation patient Ron Bayes was pleased to learn the new buses.
 
“I had to travel to Princess Margaret Hospital every day for seven weeks for radiation therapy. The experience was very tiring and emotionally draining,” stated Bayes. “I don’t know how my family or I would have coped without the shuttle bus service. It would have meant the added burden of arranging transportation to Toronto and finding a parking space that was fairly close to the hospital because I didn’t have a lot of energy to spend on walking.”

The Southlake Regional Health Centre Foundation now has its sights on the $60 million fundraising campaign goal and remains confident that the community will provide the support needed to achieve this ambitious goal.

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