Health Sciences North holds the grand opening of its new PET scanner suite — which it has named the “Sam Bruno PET Scanner Suite” — at the Ramsey Lake Health Centre Wednesday morning.
Media have been invited to tour the new suite at 9:15 a.m. This will be immediately followed by a media conference in the hospital's Rock Garden Café (cafeteria) starting at 10 a.m.
Award-winning salesman Sam Bruno became the poster child for the need for a PET scanner in the Northeast after he was diagnosed with colorectal cancer.
Bruno, who died at 55 in July 2010, had two PET scans during the course of his illness, both in southern Ontario.
Bruno first fought for Ontarians to gain wider access to PET scans, which were at the time being used only in limited clinical trials.
While travelling to Toronto regularly for cancer treatment at Princess Margaret Hospital, the indomitable Bruno began a movement to collect tens of thousands of names on a petition demanding a scanner for the Northeast.
His family and friends, through the Sam Bruno PET Steering Committee formed after his death, launched a campaign that caught fire in the Northeast and went on to raise $4.3 million for the capital cost of the scanner.
Learn more about Bruno's story and the fight to bring a PET scanner to the northeast in this article written for Sudbury.com in June by the late Sudbury journalist Carol Mulligan, who passed away in August.
