You can make the difference

By the time you read my column, the Bike Ride for the “together we can” campaign to replace the mammography machine at LaVerendrye Hospital will have been completed. But the campaign to raise funds for the new machine will only have been kicked off. Just as previous campaigns to modernize the hospitals in the district and bring a CT Scanner to the district took many months, this campaign still requires the financial support of everyone in the district.
This weekend, the Terry Fox run will take place in Fort Frances. The Terry Fox Foundation through the runs has raised over $600 million for cancer research world wide. Locally the run has raised several hundred thousand dollars. Take time this Sunday to participate.
At the end of the month the “CIBC Run for the Cure” will take place on Sunday September 30. Locally the employees of the CIBC, are coordinating the activities. The CIBC Run for the cure is part of the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. Since 1986, the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation has allocated $274 million towards breast cancer research, health promotion, advocacy, education and awareness programs.
When we wander into October, internationally “Pink Ribbon” month gets underway.
Every campaign helps raise the awareness of the disease and raises the hopes of people to eliminate or cure. Whether it is the Heart and Stroke campaign in February, or the CNIB’s Vision Health month in May, or Prostrate Cancer awareness month in Movember, all these campaigns are focused on better outcomes for Canadians.
Each of these diseases not only impact on those who have them, but also impact on the families of those individuals. They also impact on the economies of our communities.
I had never given much thought about the economics of the community until Doug Anderson of Betty’s pointed out the losses business see, when an elderly person has a fall and breaks a bone. As he points out, the injury is disabling and that reduces their ability to shop in stores and often carry on their favorite hobby. The fall and injury reduces their independence and the need to rely of friends or family to get them about worries them.
The “Together We Can” campaign will provide better mammography care in that the digital images can be sent off to radiologists who can quickly let local doctors know what is being seen in the images and help them make quicker diagnosis. Previously the film had to be sent away by courier, read and the results were returned by email. Everything can now take place quicker.
The Terry Fox foundation, the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, Prostrate Cancer Canada all are providing needed dollars for research into cancer diseases. The energy and resources that are being applied by scientists across Canada and around the world have made great advances in successfully treating many cancers.
So if you can, make a donation to the “Together we Can”, walk, jog’ or run in the ”Terry Fox Run” or “the Run for the Cure,” or don a blue ribbon and grow a moustache in November. It may make a difference to you, a friend or a family member.

–Jim Cumming,
Publisher