A campaign to raise $11 million to fund new MRI technology at Royal Jubilee Hospital (RJH) and Victoria General Hospital (VGH) is the largest driver ever launched by Victoria Hospitals Foundation (VHF).
Specifically, the funds from this campaign, called Imaging is Power, are going towards three MRIs, one CT scanner, one SPECT/CT scanner and one C-Arm.
“We are fundraising for this equipment because we are responding to the greatest needs in our hospitals right now,” said Avery Brohman, CEO of VHF. “We soft launched this campaign with our care teams and donors over the last few months and in that time, I’ve had a lot of reflecting and learning just how important these equipment pieces are in our hospital.”
Having an MRI is a big part of the lives of local child Odette Shackleton and her mother Sophie. Sophie remembers that when her daughter was only eight months old, she started noticing warning signs of hydrocephalus and brought her to the hospital. The following day, Odette had her second MRI and the results ultimately saved her life.
She was diagnosed with hydrocephalus and a severe spinal cord compression, which is common for someone like Odette, who’d already been diagnosed with achondroplasia. Each condition became life-threatening and she was sent to the BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver.
Now MRIs have become a regular part of Odette’s long-term care and are a tool in monitoring her health.
“Currently, we’re required to travel to Vancouver to have these MRIs performed,” said Sophie. “Our hope is that through the generous donations from the Victoria Hospital Foundations’ donors that the existing MRI machines running on the Island can be refurbished.”
VGH will receive two MRI machines and one is going to the RJH. The MRIs will be stripped down and rebuilt from the magnet up for $2 million each.
According to radiologist Dr. Alan Andrew, the magnet “hasn’t changed over the last 20 years and will last for another 50 years or another 30 years anyway. By keeping that magnet it means that we reduce the cost significantly because we don’t have to buy a new metal piece of the magnet itself.”
“Typically to replace an MRI machine, you have to tear all the walls of the hospital between it and the outside, get a big crane and take it down and then build everything back up,” Andrew said.
VHF donors have already raised $1.7 million.
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