“One night, just before bed, I found a lump.”
So said Amy Semple, a local high school teacher and breast cancer survivor, when she visited Shoppers Drug Mart at High Street and Lansdowne in Peterborough this afternoon, along with representatives from the Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) Foundation.
They were there to thank Shoppers Drug Mart for supporting the PRHC Foundation’s $1.9 million campaign to acquire three new full-field digital mammography machines for the hospital’s Breast Assessment Centre.
Until Friday, October 6th, customers and employees at any one of Peterborough’s four local Shoppers Drug Mart locations will be given a chance to make a donation directly to the PRHC Foundation through Shoppers Drug Mart’s 2017 Growing Women’s Health campaign.
Donations can be made by visiting any one of the following Shoppers Drug Mart locations in Peterborough until October 6th: 1875 Lansdowne Street West, 741 Lansdowne Street West, 971 Chemong Road, 225 Charlotte Street, and 361 George Street. The donations will support the purchase of the new mammography machines.
“It took two weeks to obtain the formal diagnosis at PRHC’s Breast Assessment Centre,” Amy told staff at Shoppers Drug Mart. “I had breast cancer. I was only 32 years old.”
The youngest member of Peterborough’s Survivors Abreast Dragon Boat team, she now fundraises herself to ensure that other women also receive the same quality of care and support at PRHC that she did.
“This technology that you’re helping fund will help save lives,” Amy said. “Imagine what it could mean to the women in our community, maybe even someone in your family. Thank you.”
Pharmacist/owner Mohan Joshi thanked Amy for coming and sharing her story, and said that supporting initiatives like the PRHC Foundation’s mammography campaign is what Shoppers Drug Mart’s Growing Women’s Health campaign is all about.
“We’re committed to helping build a healthier community for us all,” Mohan said. “We hope that, together with the employees of Shoppers Drug Mart, our customers will join us in supporting this vital equipment for the thousands of women who have mammograms at Peterborough Regional Health Centre every year.”
The new full-field mammography machines will give PRHC’s radiologists the ability to look at the breast from many angles to confidently determine if anything looks suspicious. Not only will this reduce the need for callbacks, reducing anxiety in patients, but it will help radiologists detect tumours earlier and when they are smaller in size.
The national Shoppers Drug Mart Growing Women’s Health campaign supports local organizations that make a difference to women’s health in each store’s own community. Customers and employees can purchase a $1 leaf, $5 butterfly, $10 apple, or a $50 bird, which are then displayed in each store’s front window for the duration of the campaign. All proceeds go to women’s health initiatives across Canada,
For more information about PHRC Foundation and to find out how you can support the hospital, call 705-876-5000 or visit www.prhcfoundation.ca. For more information about Shoppers Drug Mart’s Growing Women’s Health campaign, visit www.shoppersloveyou.ca.
