$500,000 grant to bring next-generation technology to the Breast Care Center.
MONTEREY , Calif. — Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula has received a $500,000 grant from the Monterey Peninsula Foundation to help bring the next-generation in technology to the Breast Care Center .
The funds, raised through the foundation’s annual AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament, will be awarded over three years and must be matched by donations to the Breast Care Center.
“We are very grateful for the Monterey Peninsula Foundation’s generous support of this important initiative,” said Steven Packer, MD, president and CEO of Community Hospital. “The Monterey Peninsula Foundation has made a lasting impact by addressing an impressive array of the community’s needs. We truly appreciate its assistance in supporting our efforts to further enhance the care provided to the patients we serve from throughout Monterey County .”
Community Hospital has launched an initiative to raise $2.5 million by year’s end to bring digital mammography and other leading-edge technology to the Breast Care Center . The high-definition images produced through digital mammography enable more accurate breast cancer diagnoses than film mammography.
“Just like with a digital camera, we can review, highlight, and manipulate the images in many ways to get the best view possible,” says Dr. Susan Roux, medical director of the Breast Care Center and an expert radiologist specializing exclusively in the interpretation of breast imaging and intervention.
The fundraising initiative is being led by eight women from the Monterey Peninsula who are deeply concerned about women’s health issues. Committee members are: Laurie Benjamin, Dede Bent, Linda Cosmero, Betty Kasson, Suzanne Lehr, Marcia Modisette, Jane Panattoni, and Lucy Reno.
Half of the committee members are breast-cancer survivors and all have been touched by the disease, which occurs in one in eight women.
“Early detection and diagnosis are the keys to successful outcomes,” says Kasson. “I have had breast lumps detected early three times, and three times I have had successful treatment for breast cancer. I never forget that self-examination and advances in mammography and ultrasound are the reasons I am here today.”
More than 17,000 women visit the Breast Care Center annually and about 200 new cancer cases are diagnosed by Roux and her colleague, Dr. Kristine Leatherberry. The move to digital mammography will ensure that area women continue to have local access to the very best resources in the fight against breast cancer.
More information about the breast care initiative is available by calling Carol Hatton at the Community Hospital Foundation at (831) 625-4506 or going online at www.chomp.org.
Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula , founded in 1934 and located at 23625 Holman Highway in Monterey , has grown and evolved in direct response to the changing healthcare needs of the people it serves. It is a nonprofit healthcare provider with 205 staffed acute-care hospital beds and 28 skilled-nursing beds, delivering a continuum of care from birth to end of life, and every stage in between. It serves the Monterey Peninsula and surrounding communities through 15 locations, including the main hospital, outpatient facilities, satellite laboratories, a mental health clinic, a short-term skilled nursing facility, Hospice of the Central Coast , and business offices. Find more information about Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula at www.chomp.org.