$10 Million Goal To Upgrade Island Research
Alex Campbell, chair of the B.C. Cancer Inspire the World Campaign, speaks at the Fairmont Empress Hotel with wife Jo at his side.
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Updated: September 29, 2009 6:35 AM
When Jo Campbell’s mom was diagnosed with cancer, the disease wasn’t the only difficult part.
“There were no answers, there was no help,” Campbell said.
Confusion, uncertainty and lack of support made her family’s pain all the worse.
That was 20 years ago, but the deficiencies in support still exist.
Patients of cancer, as well as their families, still don’t get the information, counselling and care they need to make dealing with the disease easier.
Campbell and her husband Alex announced Tuesday a personal donation of $1 million to the B.C. Cancer Foundation’s Inspire the World campaign.
Alex Campbell is the founder of Thrifty Foods and chairman of the Inspire the World campaign. Vice-chairman is David Black, president of Black Press.
The campaign aspires to raise $10 million in donations in order to drastically upgrade the Vancouver Island cancer research, treatment and support centre on Lee Avenue, near Royal Jubilee Hospital, in Victoria.
As part of the upgrades, one section of the centre will be named the Alex and Jo Campbell Patient and Family Support Centre.
Laura Walsh, director for the Inspire the World Campaign, said the foundation will start focusing models that best help patients and their families cope with cancer.
The B.C. Cancer Foundation hopes to break ground on the project by 2011, after donations from the campaign are collected.
Although support services are lacking (in a cancer foundation survey, only 27 per cent of Vancouver Island patients and families said they received help with anxiety and fear about the disease), research has greatly improved and now gets high marks from patients.
“We have 50 people specifically employed at our (Vancouver Island) research labs and on the clinical side,” said Dr. Ivo Olivotto, the centre’s top radiation therapy researcher and administrator. “In 2003, we had three or four.”
The Vancouver Island cancer centre was the first in North America to use bronchial therapy for people with breast cancer, Olivotto said, and in 2003 was the first in B.C. to perform intensity modulated radiation therapy, an advanced type of high-precision radiation technology.
“There’s an increase in the number of people who survive cancer,” added chief physician Dr. Philip Watson.
In addition to the patient and family support centre, the upgrade will add a predictive cancer research centre and a radiation innovation wing.
Black Press, which owns the Lake Cowichan Gazette, is a sponsor of Inspire the World.
To learn more about this campaign, go to www.inspiretheworld.ca
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