The Scarborough Hospital Foundation celebrated the overwhelming success of its Look Inside Yourself MRI campaign at the hospital’s Birchmount campus Wednesday Feb. 6.
The campaign, launched in January 2012, met its $5 million goal. That allowed the hospital to buy a new MRI machine. Hard work from both the hospital and community gave the fundraiser its success.
“Over half of the money was raised within the hospital, and then our community groups held fundraisers,” Michael Mazza, the foundation’s CEO, said. “We are grateful that the public jumped in and helped us because now patients can get access to the care that they need much faster.”
With this new machine, medical staff can better diagnose a patient’s problem. It also helps rule out other medical issues that might occur.
When patients were experiencing longer than normal wait times, it became the priority of the hospital to help improve the care. In previous years, about 225 patients had to be transferred to the hospital’s Lawrence Avenue campus because of wait times of close to 100 days. Since the installation of the new machine, that number has been reduced by more than half.
“We were becoming one of the worst in the province for wait times, so we knew we had to come together and help our patients,” Mazza said.
Along with the celebration of the MRI machine, the campaign wrapped up its success with performances dedicated to Chinese New Year. Many community members were present at the event to mark the success of a bright future for The Scarborough Hospital.
“With these new machines, the image quality is extraordinary,” Mazza said. “We are now able to diagnose problems that we couldn’t before.”