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Donna Wotherspoon of the Cypress Health Region shows off the hospital's new CT Scanner

The new CT Scanner at Cypress Regional Hospital is already bringing major benefits to the southwest.

The 64-slice scanner was installed at the Hospital in June at a cost of $1.6 million, made possible by contributions to the Dr. Noble Irwin Regional Healthcare Foundation, and staff at the Cypress Health Region feel very fortunate to have state-of-the-art equipment available to them.

Interview with Donna Wotherspoon

"It's become extremely difficult to maintain our equipment in the medical imaging department, because things are changing so quickly," said Donna Wotherspoon, the Health Region's Manager of Medical Imaging. "Technology changes at a fast rate, and for us to have a 64-slice scanner in this region is unbelievable."

Other benefits of the new scanner include decreased dosage of radiation to patients, improved image quality on scans, and the ability to do more scans per day.

"Yearly, our average is 3400 scans, and I could see us increasing that because we can do more scans per day, because the scans can be done quicker than the previous scanner was able to," Wotherspoon added.

The Dr. Noble Irwin Foundation made it their goal in 2013 to raise money for the purchase of the scanner, and it was started with a major bequest by the late Roy Blanchard earlier this year.

Interview with Clay Thompson

"Mr. Blanchard left us about $1.2 million in his estate, so the foundation decided to make raising that $400,000 difference our project for 2013," said Executive Director Clay Thompson, who added that they were about a third of the way to that total as they approach their next major event, the "Your Family's Health Radiothon."

"Our goal for that Radiothon is to raise that balance, and we put a target of $250,000 on for the show," he added. "We certainly call upon the community to help us out, and let them know ahead of time that this what it will be used for."

The Radiothon will be broadcast live from the lobby of Cypress Regional Hospital on October 3rd and 4th on Country Music Radio.