CALEB NICKERSON
SHAWVILLE Dec. 8, 2018
On Saturday, after more than a decade of community fundraising, Pontiac residents got their first look at the new dialysis unit at the Shawville Hospital.
Dozens of officials, hospital staff and even future patients took a gander at all the pristine equipment in the facility, which will be able to accommodate up to 24 patients.
“Right now we have seven stations functioning; we’ll probably be running six. We have, right now, about 17 patients on the waiting list to come to the Shawville Hospital,” explained the unit’s clinical coordinator, Melanie Breton.
She added that there are a few other patients currently travelling to Hull and Renfrew awaiting approval from their physician.
“We have a total maximum that we can run, of 24 patients,” she said. “So, more than what Shawville needs to run right now, but it fluctuates. In the last two years, the max that I’ve seen is 20 patients on the list from the area, so with 24 we’re more than comfortable if it expands.”
Breton said that since patients require treatment three times a week, they are divided into groups by their schedule.
“We’ll be running the dialysis unit six days a week,” she said. “So it’s kind of two batches of patients, the ones from Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and the ones from Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.”
A nephrologist from Hull will come to see patients once a month, but will be available at all times through a video link, if any complications arise during a treatment.
Breton emphasized how much this will mean to local patients and their families, who currently travel to Hull or Renfrew for diaysis.
“These patients are going to have a quality of life that they don’t have right now,” she said.
Dr. Tom O’Neill, of the Pontiac Community Hospital Foundation, said that this project is the result of 11 long years of fundraising by locals.
“I think it’s due to the contributions from the community, primarily,” he said.
Of the $1.4 million it took to establish the unit, around $660,000 was supplied by the foundation. O’Neill singled out the foundation’s president, Richard Grimard, and vice president, Donald Lavallée, for their indomitable spirit over years.
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“They decided to continue to push for this at a time when some people would have walked away,” he said. “I think that one of the problems that was happening with the foundation was that people had contributed so much to the dialysis and were getting a bit discouraged, because they didn’t see anything happening. Well, it’s thanks to the people on the foundation that kept pushing, now we have it.”
Allan Dean, also of the Hospital Foundation, was over the moon with the grand opening.
“I dare say there isn’t a single person in the Pontiac who in some way, shape or form, didn’t help make this happen,” he said, listing off the numerous fundraising efforts over the last decade. “This day is for them. It’s to make sure we say thank you to the residents of the Pontiac.”
He said that the Hospital Foundation will be looking at possible future projects when they meet early next year.
“I think at our last meeting I mentioned to someone, we’re going to wake up on Monday and go, ‘Now what are we going to do?’” he said with a laugh.