This year's Tim Hortons Smile Cookie campaign is raising funds for a SPECT-CT scanner at the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital.
From Monday, April 28, to Sunday, May 4, all proceeds from Smile Cookie at Nanaimo-area Tim Hortons will go to the Nanaimo and District Hospital Foundation toward the purchase of the piece of medical equipment.
Sitting at a price tag of $2.9-million, the SPECT-CT represents the single largest equipment purchase the hospital foundation has ever attempted, and will function as the second state-of-the-art SPECT-CT scanner at the hospital, with the two replacing two CT machines that are falling into retirement. Despite the two machines doing the work of three, Dr. Rob Johnson, NRGH radiologist, told the News Bulletin that medical staff expect the two machines to keep up the pace.
"We've had three scanners for 20 years, the old scanners were slower and particularly with the old scanners being on the verge of breaking down constantly, the number of people we can image with those old CT scanners has drastically diminished," Johnson said. "The new SPECT-CT cameras are much faster … We know the two modern ones can handle the volume the three older ones used to."
The reason for the high price is in part due to the machine requiring a lead-lined room due to its use of radiation.
Since beginning the fundraiser in mid November, Barney Ellis-Perry, the hospital foundation's CEO, said the organization has raised $1.9 million from nearly 2,000 donors.
"It's the largest single piece of equipment, in terms of cost, the foundation has ever got behind, I mean, it's $2.9 million, so when we started this it very much kept me awake at night," Ellis-Perry said. "The community generosity has been just crazy, in fact a lot of major gifts have gone towards this."
This is the 15th year the Smile Cookie campaign has raised money for the Nanaimo hospital foundation, but last year's campaign was the first dedicated to a specific foundation fundraiser.
The foundation hopes to fund the SPECT-CT scanner by the end of June so that it can be installed by next winter, and the procurement process is already underway.
The goal for this year's Smile Cookie campaign is to raise $60,000, after more than $38,000 was raised last year.
