Temiskaming hospital buys new breast cancer screening equipment

New mammography and biopsy units at Temiskaming Hospital will bring faster, more detailed breast cancer screening closer to home for women in the area.

The hospital in Temiskaming Shores opened its new mammography suite Monday morning to screen and test women for breast cancer, a disease that killed 5,400 Canadian women in 2025.

With the new equipment, screening for breast cancer has never been easier, more comfortable or faster at the Temiskaming Hospital, which has a state-of-the-art mammography suite at its breast cancer wing.

“This one also does 3D, so it does a 50-degree wide-angle sweep, 25 in each direction,” said Megan Rooney, a senior technologist in the hospital’s diagnostic imaging department.

“It does that in five seconds and it takes one-millimetre slices of the breast.”

Thanks to community support from more than 360 donors, the hospital raised $450,000 in nine months.

“Then on top of that, at the end of the program, Young-Davidson Alamos Gold came on with another $48,000 to buy a biopsy unit,” said Mike Baker, the hospital president and CEO.

Ryan Clark, the general manager, said that, on average, 87 women in Canada are diagnosed with breast cancer every day.

“We all come from women. We all want to protect the women,” Clark said.

“They’re our mothers, our daughters, our wives and sisters.”

Rooney said the new biopsy machine is for lesions that are only seen under mammography or with what are called tiny “micro calcifications.”

“With this piece of equipment, we can also image the specimen while we’re doing the biopsy,” she said.

“So we’re getting that instant feedback and the radiologist can see right away whether they’re getting what they need to out of the specimen or not.”

Last year, the hospital completed more than 1,600 informative breast screenings and another 540 investigative screenings.

“Both those numbers increased by almost 15 per cent from the previous year. So, it’s growing,” Baker said.

“That’s in part because the government is now allowed the age limit to drop from 50 to 40. Of those numbers, 200 of those screenings were for women between 40 and 49 years old.”

The Temiskaming Hospital is recognized as a provincially approved breast screening satellite site.

50 people a day

The new equipment means up to 50 people a day won’t have to travel to Sudbury or Timmins for procedures, bringing cancer care closer to home.

Barry Phippen is a cancer survivor who organized the New Liskeard Bikers reunion last summer, which came together for the benefit of local families affected by cancer.

Through that event, $116,000 was raised and donated to the hospital.

“If these machines can detect something at an early stage, we might even be able to save a life,” Phippen said.

Rooney said there has been tremendous success with the new equipment so far.

“Our technologists are noticing that they’re getting better images and that they’re able to get more breast tissue,” she said.

“Being able to do contrast memos, that’s just another tool they have in their toolbox.”

The hospital says the new equipment will go a long way to offer hope and care for women who need it.