The Nuclear Medicine machine at the Huntsville District Memorial Hospital is being replaced.
It’s thanks, in part, to a $2 million donation from Eric and Vizma Sprott’s family foundation and the Huntsville Hospital Foundation’s Focus on Imaging campaign.
“MAHC’s nuclear medicine machine is just shy of 20 years old and has been on the hospital’s capital equipment list for replacement for several years,” explains Dr. Jason Blaichman, Chief and Director of Diagnostic Imaging. “This machine has provided decades of service to all of Muskoka and Parry Sound, supporting surgical breast services, cardiac care, and oncology patients, and a new, more advanced machine will be key to enhancing our diagnostic capabilities for all patients.”
Hospital officials expect the project to wrap up in early 2023.
They explain nuclear medicine is an “essential component” of acute care facilities as a specialized area of radiology used for both diagnosis and treatment.
The new machine will be equipped with a SPECT/CT camera, which officials say produces a type of nuclear medicine scan in which the images or pictures from two different types of scans are combined. The combined scan, they say, gives doctors more precise information and allows them to identify potential problems better.
Officials say up to 2,000 nuclear medicine procedures are done yearly at the Huntsville hospital.
They continue saying that “extensive renovations” are underway to expand the Sprott Foundation Diagnostic Imaging department
“A great deal of planning goes into a project of this magnitude to minimize the impacts of renovation on patient care and services,” says Cheryl Harrison, President and CEO of MAHC. “We are thankful for the collaboration with hospital partners in Barrie, Orillia and North Bay to support our patients’ nuclear medicine needs during the construction phase, and are so grateful for the incredible generosity of the Sprott Foundation and the Foundation’s hard work to support this much-needed project that has been years in the making with COVID-related delays.”