Bill Roberts
Angela Trevivian uses pig lungs to demonstrate the effects of smoking during Thursday’s open house to provide information about services to be offered at the Stronach Regional Cancer Centre at Southlake Regional Health Centre. The cancer centre is set to open next year.
Regional News
November 15, 2008 09:23 PM
Teresa Latchford
York Region residents will soon have access to specialized radiation therapy.
Southlake Regional Cancer Centre is set to open next year and the $110-million regional cancer program will act as the designated treatment centre for about 1.2 million people living in York Region and South Simcoe, providing diagnostics, surgery, chemotherapy, support services and clinical trials.
By 2013, one in two will be diagnosed with cancer, Southlake president and CEO Dan Carriere said during the centre’s open house Thursday.
“The good news is today we are treating it like a chronic disease, which before would have been a death sentence.”
The four-storey, 100,000-square-foot outpatient centre will offer radiation treatment, a 23-bed chemotherapy unit, three outpatient clinics, space for clinical drug trials, healing gardens and the use of natural light, known to help the healing process.
The radiation centre can accommodate 52,000 new patients by the year 2012 and will treat 1,250 in the first year, explained Dr. Padraig Warde, head of radiation oncology at Princess Margaret Hospital working with Southlake.
It will be the only centre in Ontario, if not Canada, to offer volumetric modulated arc therapy, a radiation treatment that allows medical staff to target one area of the body concentrated with cancer cells rather than exposing the entire body to the treatment, Dr. Warde said.
The precision method also shortens treatment times, meaning more patients can be treated in less time.
Looking to the future, Mr. Carriere also told those at the open house the hospital has the potential to become an academic teaching centre. Administrators hope to accept its first medical resident when the cancer centre opens, expanding to 18 residents by 2011.
“The momentum of this hospital and its programs makes it the next logical step,” he said.
The move will enhance overall care and boost the local economy by creating job, not to mention strengthen the recruitment and the retention of specialists needed at the hospital, he predicts. The number of complex cases, also known as tertiary cases, received by the hospital each year ranks it the ninth-highest in the country with the top eight being teaching hospitals.
“I can’t see any draw backs,” Mr. Carriere said. “It will be a transformation for north York Region.”
Complex medical cases will also benefit from multidisciplinary case conferences, bringing together surgeons, oncologists, radiologists, pathologists and nurses to discuss cases involving cancerous tumours and making recommendations for the best treatment options. Videoconferencing technology will allow other hospitals to link in with the sessions.
Thursday open house allowed residents to explore some of the state-of-the-art technology that will be employed at the new centre. Demonstrations included minimally invasive surgery techniques, and a smoke-free campaign that use pig lungs to illustrate the impact of smoking and radiation. Other booths provided information on the new pediatrics cancer treatment program, construction of the centre, diagnosis programs for breast and colorectal screening and the hospital foundation’s Count on Me campaign, which has raised $41 million of the $60-million goal for the centre.
“This is sort of an historical moment,” Mr. Carriere said. “It’s not just about building a building, but building a strategy so when people need the services, they are already in place close to home.”
Eight years ago, there were no plans for a cancer centre within York’s boundaries, he said. However, those plans changed based on the region’s rapid population growth.
While Oshawa took eight years to plan and build its cancer centre, Southlake has done it in five.
“It is no accident the centre is located right here in Newmarket,” said Dr. Sherar, vice-president of Cancer Care Ontario. “It was the strength of the team and the burden of cancer that is growing, especially in this region.”
For more information about the regional cancer program at Southlake, visit
www.southlakeregional.org or call 905-836-7333.
Did you know?
- 38 per cent of Canadian women and 44 per cent of men will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime.
- About 3,300 new cases of cancer were diagnosed in York Region in 2007 and by 2014, it is expected to increase to 4,500 new cases each year.
- The annual cancer patients visits to the regional centre is expected to hit 100,000 by 2012.
- Southlake is the only non-teaching hospital in Ontario to specialize in both cancer and cardiac care while offering four other provincially designated regional programs of care including thoracic, child and adolescent mental health, pediatric and prenatal care and cataract.