Donald Teuma-Castelletti
QUYON July 25, 2018
The CLSC in Quyon has been the fortunate recipient of the community’s hard work in fundraising, affording their doctor a new examination table after waiting years for a replacement.
At a celebration of the new addition at the CLSC on July 25, Dr. Ruth Vander Stelt thanked the donors, including the Quyon Lionettes, Lions, CLSC Foundation and Pontiac MNA André Fortin, for their generosity.
“It’s a symbolic thing, it’s not so much how much money was spent on the table,” said Dr. Vander Stelt. “You’ve got the Lions, the Lionettes, you’ve got the MNA and then you’ve got the [CLSC] Foundation, so it’s a communal effort and that’s symbolic for the CLSC.”

Installed about a month ago, the doctor highlighted what the table has meant to providing her services to patients.
“I would have a 300 lb. patient and I would have to lift his head – it wasn’t hydraulic, right,” she explained, of working with the old table. “So, I had to actually push it up, and then the person would slide down the table … It was completely impossible, by the time you’re that weight, you’re too wide, so I had people falling off the table. It was ridiculous.”
Referred to as the “Cadillac of tables” by some of the Lionettes at the celebration, it features the power-reclining top, strategically placed handle bars for lifting oneself onto it, and many drawers for holding the doctor’s tools. As well, the top is much more cushioned, providing greater comfort for patients.
Patients, too, had immediately noticed, providing positive feedback on the table to the doctor.
Dr. Vander Stelt explained that the table has been sought for the office in excess of 10 years and could only guess as to how long the old one had been in the office.
“It was kind of a yellowish-orange, I think it was from the 70s … or maybe the 50s,” said Dr. Vander Stelt, of the old examination table. “It was literally rusted in place, we had to re-wax the floor when we lifted it.”
The table, Dr. Vander Stelt explained, had been an equipment update requested by the CLSC’s governing body at the Centre intégré de santé et de services sociaux de l’Outaouais (CISSSO).
However, because CISSSO attends to funding requests based on a level of need, it has been something pushed back indefinitely, according to the doctor.
“They have a kind of short-, medium-, and long-term planning, so if your table was sawed in half, they would replace it,” said the doctor. “Unless it’s broken and unusable, they go, ‘Okay, well we’ll have to see what we can do about that.’ And then they put it on either short-term, medium-term or long-term plan, and at a certain point you might get it.”
But it wasn’t only under CISSSO that the table had been requested, as it has been sought for so long. Under the old management, it was the same situation.
When members of the community heard this, they got right down to work. Together, the four groups pooled their funds to afford the new table, as well as the delivery and moving fees.
“One of the important things about Lionettes and Lions Clubs is that we serve the community,” said Lionettes President Pat Lusk. “The community is all about the people – we work for the people in this community. We believe in them and we work for them. Having a beautiful doctor and having a place like the CLSC here, it’s convenient for everybody. We have to keep it here, we’ve got to keep active and we’ve got to grow and by growing we have to work together.”
The doctor was very aware of the community’s support for this project, acknowledging Lusk specifically for rounding up the funding to make this upgrade happen.
“Honestly, it was Pat Lusk and once you get her involved with a project there’s nothing stopping her,” she said. “You know, she didn’t have to do it. There’s nothing that she had to do. She just got involved, she’s not even from Quyon, she’s from Luskville. But she believes in the place, and I’m not just saying that. She believes in the place and she believes in the people.”
Despite just how long it took to receive the table, and the means of acquiring it, without the community’s help the doctor would have been left with few choices.
“The only other thing we could have done was put a tip jar,” said Dr. Vander Stelt, between laughing. “And just hope that one day we have enough money.”