For the Bannister family, cancer hits close to home.
“Our family has been touched by cancer in many different ways,” said Chad Bannister. “My grandpa had prostate cancer. My mom’s dad had colon cancer. My wife had cancer, I’ve had cancer.”
Those personal stories are what is driving the Bannister family — a name many Okanagan residents will recognize from their namesake Bannister Automotive Group — to make a significant donation towards advancing cancer care in the Okanagan.
“We were put in a position where we can make a difference by investing in the local community,” Bannister said.
On Tuesday, the Bannisters announced at the cancer clinic in Kelowna that they’re donating $1.5 million towards the construction of a new, state-of-the-art systemic therapy suite on site.
“Their gift will have a legacy that will save lives for generations to come,” said Dr. Ross Halperin, regional medical director at BC Cancer Kelowna. “Everybody across the Interior will benefit from their generosity.”
The current systemic therapy suite at the clinic is small and cramped.
Once constructed, the new suite will be 10,000 square feet and will pave the way for more cancer treatments and for more patients to access care closer to home.
“About 40 per cent more capacity and the number of people we can treat per day with a systemic therapy will increase by that amount,” Halperin said.
Halperin added that the new unit will also lead to a lot more clinical trials to be done in Kelowna.
“We’ll be able to do cutting edge phase one clinical trials, which means the most innovative newest cancer treatments will be things that can be had here in the Okanagan,” Halperin told Global News.
Allan Wolfram, 67, knows all about the importance of clinical trials.
In April 2019, he was diagnosed with Stage 4 esophageal cancer with a large tumour that was inoperable.
“It was nine centimetres, it was pretty big,” Wolfram said. “I was told I had six months to a year to live.”
The cancer had also spread to his brain but Wolfram got a new lease on life thanks to taking part in an immunotherapy clinical trial offered at the Kelowna clinic.
“Basically after a year on it, all the tumours in me basically shrivelled to nothing,” Wolfram said.
Wolfram is applauding the Bannister family and their major contribution, saying it will create hope for many cancer patients.
“It’s amazing,” Wolfram said. “It’s going to create for individuals a lifeline.”
A lifeline that doctors say will save lives.
“It’ll save more lives than we’re able to save before,” Halperin said.
“We will save more lives because we can give more timely cancer therapy. But it’ll save more lives because we can bring earlier to patients the cutting edge innovative cancer therapies that prove over time to be better through clinical trials.”
The new systemic therapy suite is expected to be up and running in the next year or two.