P.E.T Scanner One Giant Step Closer To Becoming Reality In Sudbury

By: Nick Liard

It’s a go for a permanent Positron Emission Temography scanner(PET scanner) at Health Sciences North in Sudbury.

Ontario’s Minister of Health and Long-Term Care, Dr. Eric Hoskins announced yesterday, the government will provide 1.6 million dollars in annual funding for the PET scanner, available by April 1st 2016.

Hoskins says the volume of population who would use the scanner was what changed the focus from a mobile PET scanner to a permanent one.

It was also based on the travel time citizens in Northern Ontario are faced with if there is a need for a scan.

It will now be up to HSN and the community to raise the funds to pay for the scanner, the Sam Bruno PET Steering Committee has raised almost one million of of the estimated four million dollar cost.

The PET scanner is a diagnostic test used for certain cancers, heart disease and neurological diseases such as Alzheimers.