The Tofino Hospital Foundation continues to flex its fundraising prowess by bringing state-of-the-art equipment into the West Coast’s only local hospital.
The foundation (THF) recently purchased an $18,000 bladder scanner with funding from the Mr. and Mrs. P.A. Woodward’s Foundation.
The Woodward’s Foundation was struck 60 years ago to provide funding for B.C. hospitals and THF president Arlene McGinnis said she was “jubilant” when Woodward’s agreed to fund the new bladder scanner.
“We’re such a small community so if anybody is willing to help us in anyway we’ll gladly accept that help,” she said.
“This is for the communities of the West Coast so anything that we purchase that can improve healthcare in our hospital, or maintain it to the level it is, that’s really important to us as a foundation.”
THF secretary Judy Michaud said Woodward’s offered a refreshingly straightforward application process and responded quickly to the THF’s request.
“It wasn’t the pages of application and red-tape that we so often today run into with so many things,” she said.
The new bladder scanner will save patients from catheterization allowing for non-invasive treatment and is the latest in a myriad of medical equipment the foundation has obtained for the hospital, mostly through local fundraising.
“The mandate of the Tofino Hospital Foundation is to further the advancement of this local hospital with equipment that would not otherwise be purchased by Island Health,” Michaud said.
“In the last eight years the foundation has fundraised over $350,000 in this community, and I don't mean just Tofino I mean our West Coast… The support we get from this community is phenomenal.”
McGinnis agreed.
“None of this would possible without the community’s support,” she said.
“The community is 100 per cent behind us. It’s incredible.”
She said equipping the hospital with the best and latest equipment is “extremely important” for the West Coast.
“We are two hours away, by road, to the next help that we can get and it could be a matter of life and death,” she said.
“We feel that we have really excellent staffing with the doctors and the nurses that we are getting…It’s so important to have that excellent one-on-one care that you get when you come to this hospital.”
Michaud added that without state-of-the-art equipment, attracting and retaining the hospital’s high level of staffing would be difficult.
“If staff come to work here and things are not adequate you lose them,” she said. “There is enough demand for healthcare professionals around BC that jobs are plentiful…if it’s not up to snuff they can walk away.”
With the new bladder scanner purchased and installed, the foundation now has its sights set on a $24,000 Lifepak 15 Defibrillator and received a solid start to this pursuit thanks to a $10,000 donation from the Tofino Saltwater Classic.
The foundation also hopes to purchase two $5,000 syringe pumps designed to calculate and deliver drug dosages for children.
Anyone interested in donating to the foundation can do so through P.O. Box 190 Tofino and donations are tax deductible.
“If anybody is willing to give us any help or support or donate to us, please do so. It will benefit everybody,” McGinnis said.
andrew.bailey@westerlynews.ca