Thursday, April 01, 2010
Additional Funding, State-Of-The-Art Equipment And Dedicated Surgeons Help Standardize Regional Cancer Care
PEMBROKE – Funding to purchase new equipment which will help enhance regional cancer care has once again been awarded to the Pembroke Regional Hospital through its partnership with the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation.
In total, grant funding in the amount of $40,000 was received for the purchase of a colonoscope for colorectal cancer screening.
“The Cancer Foundation works to ensure that people in our communities have access to the necessary screening tools,” said Linda Eagen, Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation President and CEO. “We are proud that through partnerships like this one with the Pembroke Regional Hospital, we are doing our part to make sure that our families, friends and neighbours have close-to-home access to top-quality cancer care.”
This new equipment, and additional provincial funds for more procedures will help support the goals of Ontario’s Colorectal Cancer Screening Program which is now focusing on screening for those at higher risk for this type of cancer because they have a family history of colon cancer or have tested positive for blood in the stool.
In Pembroke, three surgeons – Dr. Scott Graham, Dr. Adel El fitori and Dr. Zaihan Rashid are committed to doing referral-based colon screening which supports standardized best practice efforts for regional cancer care. Patients can be referred by their family physician or they can obtain the stool test kit from their pharmacy and those with positive results will automatically have a colonoscopy arranged for them.
Another standardized procedure now being done locally is the minimally-invasive biopsy for sentinel lymph nodes.
In the fall of 2008, PRH was able to purchase a $45,000 Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy Probe thanks to a generous donation by the Giant Tiger Community Cancer Fund, once again made possible through the Hospital’s partnership with the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation.
Using Bluetooth technology, a Sentinel Lymph Node biopsy, in which the Probe is used, is a less invasive technique for accessing lymph nodes in order to determine if breast cancer has spread to the lymph nodes in the underarm area, without having to do a traditional underarm lymph node dissection.
“Offering this procedure can help prevent the need for more involved surgery and has the advantage of decreasing the risk of side effects such as numbness and swelling, while allowing the patient to resume regular activity in a more timely manner,” said Janet Boudens, Director of the Hospital’s Surgical program.
Chief of Surgery, Dr. Scott Graham, said that having access to such techniques and state-of-the-art equipment puts Pembroke Regional Hospital on an equal footing with the same standard of care as hospitals located in more urban settings.
“Aside from being much closer to home, another advantage is that our general surgery wait times for colon and breast cancer are among the shortest wait times in the region,” Dr. Graham said.
Dr. Michael Fung-Kee-Fung, Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and the Department of Surgery at the University of Ottawa, is presently Head of the Surgical Oncology Program at The Ottawa Hospital and the Regional Cancer Program.
Among his many other roles, he is Director of the Regional Cervical Cancer Screening Program for the Champlain LHIN and said he is very excited that the surgical group at PRH now has access to state-of-the-art services for delivery of breast cancer care for the Pembroke region.
“As an integral part of the regional cancer team dealing with breast cancer, the Pembroke surgeons have played a key and vital role in establishing the standards and bench marks for surgery,” Dr. Fung-Kee-Fung said.
“The Pembroke team as a whole continues to be actively engaged in shaping the course of the delivery of cancer services, and have distinguished themselves as being highly valuable and committed partners.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Carolyn Levesque, Public Affairs & Communications Coordinator
Pembroke Regional Hospital
(613) 732-3675, ext. 6165 / carolyn.levesque@pemreghos.org.
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