Just four moths after kicking off their largest fundraising campaign ever, the South Okanagan Similkameen Medical Foundation is 80 per cent of the way to reaching its $1.5 million goal.

In June, the foundation kicked off the campaign to raise enough money to purchase a new CT scanner for the Penticton Regional Hospital. At the time, the goal of raising $1.5 million seemed a long ways away, but Janice Perrino, executive director for the SOSMF, was confident the public would come through for the hospital as they did on previous occasions.

And with just over $1.2 million raised from four months of fundraising, Perrino’s optimistic outlook was clearly justified. She’s hoping that the Christmas season, traditionally a good time for fundraising, will help push them over the top, explaining they may need more than the original $1.5 million to cover related expenses.

“We must get to $1.5 million, we have to. But we realize that there may be some extra expenses, so we’re hoping, if we could, to get to $1.7 million,” said Perrino. “We’ve begun to be told that renovations are going to cost more and the machine they’d like to consider is going to cost a little more, so we’re trying desperately to go over the top.”

Right now, the medical staff are researching the type of machine that they feel PRH needs to get, as well as considering the renovations needed to fit the new machine in place.

While the CT scanner currently in use at the hospital was state of the art when it was purchased, the technology has changed dramatically since it was installed in 2001 and manufacturers are no longer supporting it.

“We can’t even get replacement parts for it any more and it has been prone to breaking down because of its age,” said Perrino, explaining the new machine will be up-dateable and they hope to get up to 15 years out of it. “The idea with this is that we’ll remain state of the art, and as the technologies changes, we’ll always try to remain as up to date as possible.”

The new machine will have several advantages over the hospital’s current scanner, not the least of which is its speed and precision of operation. While the old machine is only able to create four slices per second, new models can create up to 312.

And they do it with less radiation. They use at least 40 per cent less and, in some situations, even greater reductions occur.

“Some of the data that they’re getting from Vancouver, which has one to the newer machines, is that they are able to do children with up to 98 per cent less radiation,” said Perrino.

Older people, she explains, might not have a lot of fear about getting some possible effect, 40 years down the road, from too much radiation, but when dealing with children it becomes a distinct concern.

New CT scanners are also able to do angiograms, which previously involved an invasive surgical procedure, inserting a tube through the groin. Now, Perrino said, all you will have to do is sit there for five seconds and have a picture taken.