New radiation machine a boon to Soo cancer patients

Providing quality care close to home is one of the biggest challenges facing health-care providers in northeastern Ontario, but a new development in the Sault Ste Marie area is changing that.

A diagnosis of breast cancer came as a surprise last year for a Sault Ste. Marie woman we will call Francis. CBC News has agreed to use that name to protect her privacy.

["It came] completely out of the blue. I'm an extremely healthy person. I work out every day. I eat an anti-cancer diet. So it was very shocking," she said.

Surgery and cancer therapies followed for Francis. But she didn't have to spend hours in a car, back and forth to Sudbury for radiation treatment, thanks to a new radiation machine in the Soo that is run in partnership with the Northeastern Ontario Regional Cancer Centre.

Dr. Silvana Spadafora is an oncologist at the Sault Area Hospital.

"We looked at the need for a radiation bunker. Those were the two areas we look at -- patients opting for more radical forms of therapy to avoid radiation, to avoid the travel out of town -- or actually patients opting not to receive any extra therapy, and therefore compromising their own care," Spadafora said.

Most Algoma region cancer patients can now stay in the Soo for all their treatment.

But patients elsewhere in the north can expect to keep travelling to Sudbury.

At a cost of about $3 million a machine, the northeast cancer centre says it's unlikely radiation suites will be added to other northern hospitals in the near future.