Burnaby residents could soon have a shorter wait to find out if they have certain kinds of cancer.
Burnaby Hospital is getting ready to add a second dedicated endoscopy suite to its arsenal, thanks partly to a $600,000 donation from the Burnaby Hospital Foundation last month.
Endoscopy is a medical examination in which an instrument called an endoscope is passed into a part of the body (intestine, stomach) to investigate symptoms and take small tissue samples (biopsies) to check for things like pre-cancerous polyps and cancerous tumours.
Demand for the procedure has jumped, according to Burnaby Hospital general surgeon and endoscopist Mark Dickeson, especially with the advent of the provincial colon screening program, which now encourages everyone over the age of 50 to undergo – at minimum – a stool (or fecal immunochemical) test for colorectal cancer.
Abnormal results trigger a letter from the B.C. Cancer Agency advising the patient to go for a colonoscopy.
“It can be anxiety provoking,” Dickeson said.
Five years ago, endoscopy resources at the local hospital were sub-par, according to Dickeson, leading to longer wait times.
“We had access to a Lower Mainland endoscopy report that clearly showed we lagged behind everybody,” he said.
But Dickeson said he and a group of fellow surgeons presented a business case to Fraser Health outlining the shortcomings, and endoscopy at the hospital has since seen a steady increase in resources.
Endoscopy has gotten more funding, more specialized scoping equipment, expanded hours and use of a second “flex room” for three days a week, according to Dickeson.
The second dedicated endoscopy suite – in place of the current “flex room” – should put the hospital on par with other Fraser Health facilities and reduce wait times, he said.
“I think we’ll be at least equivalent to the rest of Fraser Health. I think the access has got us in line with the rest of the region for sure.”
Construction of the second room was supposed to start a couple months ago but was delayed because of “infrastructure problems,” according to Dickeson, who has been involved in the project planning for at least a year.
“Because it is an old building, every time you crack a ceiling tile you find things you weren’t expecting,” he said.
Fraser Health told the NOW the second endoscopy suite should be operational by mid-2016.
