​ With the generous support of donors in our community the PR Hospital Foundation was able to purchase six pieces of major medical equipment for acute care in the hospital in 2019 totalling $169,614.  The equipment shown here went to the maternity department where the medical team there is now better prepared to care for multiple seriously ill mothers and babies until transport can be provided to Children’s Hospital in Vancouver.  

​      With the change of our society demographic profile our acute care facility faces, at times, challenges around overcapacity and long wait times.  For many patients the Emergency Department is the place where they are first admitted to hospital and where both of these issues are most obvious and concerning.  Patients without a personal doctor may have no other option but to go to the hospital emergency room for care.  If you’re admitted to a ward for further acute care you may find over-crowding there also.  Perhaps the patient in the bed next to you has completed the acute care phase of treatment and is waiting to be transferred to a different care setting. Every day your health care team works hard to assure your quality of care, regardless of these challenges.
 
      The medical community’s term for the issue of wait times and over-crowding is Patient Access and Flow. This is a major issue for hospitals all over Canada.  Here in Powell River significant attention and resources are being spent to find local solutions to the problem. Kim Markel, Manager of Acute Services, has recently been involved in a multi-site project that looked at the issues of patient access to the right care in the right location and developed multiple approaches to addressing the issue. The project was guided by her participation in a quality improvement training program provided by the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement which the PR Hospital Foundation supported.  
 
     Solutions to the problem are complex and varied.  One priority for Powell River is to increase the number of available home health care workers.  Melie de Champlain, our hospital’s Director of the Coastal Community of Care,  and the local campus of Vancouver Island University recently partnered to sponsor a special class for home health care workers. Fifteen people are enrolled and they will graduate and begin working in December 2019. This will mean more people at home will be provided with support to enable them to stay longer with their loved ones in the community.

The Powell River Hospital Foundation is raising funds to update the hospital’s maternity room. To date, the Foundation has committed to purchase two new infant incubators, an obstetrical ultrasound unit and an electronic fetal signs monitor. The old incubator, in the photo above, has been in service since 1996.

From 1994 to October 31, 2018 over $3.6 million has been spent & committed through the donations to the Powell River Hospital Foundation.
2018
Gamma Camera: ($46,921) shows how internal organs are working by taking images of the flow of medically- administered tracer radionuclides. Helps doctors make diagnoses. Status: on order.

It was eight years ago when the Powell River Hospital Foundation first funded a CT scanner for Powell River General Hospital.
Since then, thousands of patients have received this important diagnostic service within their community, instead of having to travel to the mainland or Vancouver Island.

Knitted Knockers is an international organization whose members knit prostheses for women who’ve undergone breast surgery. Pictured  with their afternoon’s output of breast prostheses. From left: Kay Matterson, Joyce Morris, Sheila Erikson, Mary Henry, Joyce Baisley, Shirley Koleszar, June Vogl, Doreen Smith, Anne Innes, and Vicki Tysdal.

Donors and donations are the back-bone and lifeblood of the Powell River Hospital Foundation and all that it does to improve the quality of patient care at our hospital. Costly improvements like the CT Scan and up-to-date Ultrasound diagnostic equipment have underlined the importance of donations. Here, long time Foundation Director Dave Harper, left, and Chair Mike Chisholm, honour Robert Lacey, a constant and generous donor over the years, with a plaque recognizing his contributions. “I’ve lived in Powell River all my life,” says Robert. “Powell River’s been very good to me, and I take a lot of satisfaction in giving back, in the form of donations to the Hospital Foundation.”