There are two words on everyone’s lips at the minute, Cyber Surgery. This is the new radiotherapy equipment that will revolutionise cancer treatment at the Freeman Hospital’s Northern Centre for Cancer Care. The ‘Cyber Surgery’ service will be equipped with the latest state-of-the-art technology and will be the first of its kind in the UK outside London.
Octopus Media had the pleasure of meeting with Sir John Hall one of the Charlie Bear Cancer Appeal patrons. We invited him into Octopus Media to use his considerable media presence to promote the charity. When Sir John Hall came into Octopus Media he was greeted by Richard Gallagher the Marketing and Brand Director. “Full of energy and laughter, little hard to believe Sir John Hall has got prostate cancer. Spending several hours with Sir John Hall, I was taken aback by the desire and drive he had for life and living within the North East. A lot could be learned from experience and Sir John Hall is a shining example of an individual taking a challenge head on.” Octopus Media updated the Charlie Bear logo to give it a fresh identity, created a website so that people could read all about this amazing charity online and helped to market it as well so that as many people as possible knew about the amazing work the Charlie Bear Charity Appeal have achieved.
The ‘Cyber Surgery’ has been likened to ‘removing a grape from the centre of an orange, without damaging the orange.’ Picturing this in your mind it is a spectacular procedure that can be done with this new technology ‘delivering high doses of radiation with pin-point multi-dimension accuracy malignant and benign tumours’ and the damage to surrounding tissue is minimal.
In December 2011 Sir John Hall launched a £3 million appeal to bring this astounding technology to the region, and in less than 1 year, thanks to the overwhelming generosity of the North East public, the appeal has raised £200,000. In a special collaboration, the Sir Bobby Robson fund has made an astonishing £850,000 contribution to the appeal, which with a £1.8 million investment and an additional contribution of £150,000 from the Newcastle Healthcare Charity has made the £3 million target a reality and to finally secure the Cyber Surgery equipment for the Northern Centre for Cancer Care.
This world class machine ‘will be in place from mid March 2013 and following a period of commissioning, be fully operational by the Autumn.’ I think we can all agree that this piece of information is music to our ears.
From all of us at Octopus Media we just want to say how proud we are of all of the charities for their inspirational work towards giving patients with cancer the treatment they need and deserve.