Gélinas reiterates call for PET scanner

Nickel Belt MPP France Gélinas rose in the Ontario Legislature on Wednesday to call on the Liberals to fund a PET scanner in northeastern Ontario.

“It has been six long years since Sam Bruno started a campaign to bring a PET scanner to northeastern Ontario,” Gélinas said. “Over 30,000 people have signed petition to bring a PET to Health Sciences North in Sudbury. The hospitals from the northeast, the municipalities, the First Nations and the church leaders all agree that we need a PET scanner.”

Since the Bruno campaign began, mobile PET scanners that hospital don't have to find permament space to house were born. Health Minister Eric Hoskins asked the province's PET steering committee to review the possibility of a mobile PET scanner, but the committee's report has been with the minister for months now, Gélinas said.

“We have companies ready, willing and able to bring a mobile PET scanner the northeast right now,” she said in a press release. “The Bruno family ... is ready to pay for the renovations necessary to the hospital dock for a mobile scanner.

"The only thing that is missing on this file is the ministry (of health).”

Gélinas said when Eric Hoskins was questioned during the estimates committee, he promised action on the PET scanner file before Christmas. Given how long the local PET campaign has lasted and the number of ill people in the northeast who have to travel to receive a scan, Gélinas urged action.

“Six years where people from Kapuskasing to Kirkland and SSM to North Bay had to travel to Toronto is far too long.”