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HERE is Where Cancer Meets its Match

Cancer hits close to home. Care should too.

When you hear the words “you have cancer,” life is never the same. For Jamie, it meant weeks of grueling chemotherapy and challenging surgery, TWICE. For Melanie, it meant facing daily radiation treatments and surgery after a whirlwind breast cancer diagnosis. For both, it meant having the Stronach Regional Cancer Centre at Southlake here in their community, so they could stay close to what mattered most: home.

Since its inception, the Stronach Regional Cancer Centre has committed to making here the absolute best place to diagnose, treat, and survive cancer. Combining an academic hospital system’s expertise and care options with deep community connections, we balance leading-edge treatment with patient-centred care. Consistently ranked in the top three of Ontario’s 14 Cancer Centres, Southlake was recently named the first partner of the Princess Margaret Cancer Care Network.

HERE is where Cancer meets its match.

Our Campaign

The Stronach Regional Cancer Centre has served our communities with distinction for over a decade. However, with our population expanding and aging at rapid rate, demand for care is increasing like never before. We must grow our capacity to minimize wait times because for cancer care, time is of the essence.  We must also keep up with technological advances—we cannot face tomorrow’s challenges with yesterday’s methods in the fight against cancer. We face a tipping point and we need your help.

We have launched, HERE is Where Cancer Meets its Match to expand our spaces, build new capacity and bring the latest technology to the Cancer Centre to ensure our talented clinicians can deliver the best care—and the best chance for our patients to survive their cancer—right here. With the investment of our community, we can keep care close to home.

Our Goal

With the generous support of our community, we have raised over $17.2M in support of our $20M goal.

We are over halfway there!

Your thoughtful investment in the HERE is Where Cancer Meets its Match Campaign will help us:

  • Complete the replacement of our three original Linear Accelerators (LINACs) that deliver radiation therapy which are at the end of their lifecycle to ensure our patients and staff will no longer feel the stress of equipment breaking down and shuffling patients to other machines to ensure they do not miss their treatment.
  • Add a fifth LINAC to meet the massive demands of our growing communities to enable over 7,000 additional treatments for patients annually.
  • Fund the four remaining new chemotherapy chairs and their ancillary equipment. The fleet of new chairs will enable us to reduce wait times by accommodating 7,000 additional treatment visits each year.
  • Expand and upgrade the Cancer Centre Pharmacy to match increased demand, improve efficiencies, and meet up-to-date regulatory standards to keep patients and staff safe.
  • Replace an aging MRI machine that is often down for repairs. The new MRI will provide 8,000 scans annually. Moreover, advances in MRI technology mean that its replacement will provide higher quality and more accurate images.

Southlake is Creating the Cancer Care You Deserve

We see a tomorrow where the demand for leading edge cancer care is greater than ever before. Facing this challenge requires not only expanding our capacity to deliver care, but introducing new advanced technology to transform care. Ultimately, our goal is to ensure that every patient—like Jamie, Melanie, Alyssa, Bill and Elizabeth—when facing the battle of their lives, exhausted, anxious and ill, never have to travel to access the leading edge cancer care they need.

We know that cancer hits close to home. Care should too.

If you have cancer, this is this place to be. We have such incredible talent here — individuals at the very forefront of their disciplines. Our doctors, nurses and radiation therapists represent the very best. Now we need to ensure they have the technology worthy of their skills.

Dr. Peter Anglin, Oncologist and Physician Lead for the Stronach Regional Cancer Centre

Questions? Contact us at foundation@southlake.ca

Through the early philanthropic support of our community, we have raised over $17.2 Million of our $20 million campaign goal.

We are over half-way there!

Caring gifts from our donors have already empowered us to deliver on core projects of this Campaign, including:

 

  • Bringing two replacement Linear Accelerators (LINACs) for radiation therapy online to minimize disruptions and wait times caused by aging equipment while ensuring our patients benefit from the advances of new technology.

  • Funding 15 new chemotherapy chairs as part of our Systemic Therapy Program expansion to reduce wait times for care when time is of the essence.

  • Acquiring the first-ever PET-CT scanner for our region so that Southlake patients will no longer need to travel considerable distances to other hospitals or private clinics to access this advanced diagnostic precision.

  • The arrival of the first Elekta Harmony LINAC in Canada. The Elekta Harmony LINAC is the newest model of radiation treatment machines and will enable Southlake to treat an additional 7,000 patients annually.

Jamie

In 2013, Jamie Pimek was worried he had an ulcer. The Newmarket business leader was 31, healthy and active, so he attributed the pain in his stomach to work stress. But that pain wouldn’t go away.

It wasn’t until his family doctor sent him to Southlake for a colonoscopy that he began to think the unthinkable…

 

Melanie

In 2022, 48 year-old Melanie — a wife, mother, and business development professional — was experiencing breast pain and casually mentioned it to her family physician during a routine annual exam.

As a precaution, Melanie’s doctor ordered a mammogram to check things out. She could never have imagined the whirlwind that would ensue…

 

Bill & Elizabeth

Bill and Elizabeth were sitting at the table together, celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary when they received a call that would change their lives.

The mole that Elizabeth had biopsied was confirmed as melanoma. She was scheduled for surgery the next day…

 

Alyssa

When Tania accompanied her mother at the Stronach Regional Cancer Centre at Southlake for treatment, she never imagined that she would be returning for her youngest child, Alyssa.

In 2021 at only three years old, Alyssa was tired, in pain and had blue lips…