CALEB NICKERSON
SHAWVILLE March 10, 2021
Despite the pandemic putting a damper on fundraising efforts, the Pontiac Community Hospital Foundation is still looking to do their part to help out and the members are hoping for big things in 2021.
The foundation was formed with the goal of purchasing equipment that the health care professionals at the hospital could put to good use. Founding President Dr. Tom O’Neill explained that the group has raised between . . .
$2-3 million over the years, for a variety of projects huge and tiny.
One of the projects that kicked it off was the acquisition of equipment to allow for cataract surgeries at the hospital back in the late 1990s. Following that, they embarked on one of their biggest projects, to acquire a CT scanner at the hospital.
“The CT scan would probably be the biggest fundraiser we’re looking at,” he said. “We understood that if you wanted to attract a surgeon here, in the future, they would not come here unless there was some modern technology, so the CT scan was the first big project … We went up and down from Fort Coulonge to Luskville raising money … Initially we thought we’d buy a second hand one. … [At the] end of the day we got a new one. We raised more than a million dollars in less than 2.5 years in one of the communities — and it still is — that’s one of the poorest in Quebec.”
Consolidated Bathurst, which was still operating at the time, came through with a donation of $100,000 to push the project past the finish line.
From there, the next major project the foundation tackled was the dialysis unit, a campaign that lasted more than a decade and brought in more than $650,000.
Board member Allan Dean came on with the foundation in the middle of the project, and said that it was a gargantuan effort.
“They mentioned the foundation and I said I’d be interested in helping out if you want somebody. Next thing you know, [I was involved] … We have a family history in the dialysis. My dad was a recipient of dialysis in the 60s.”
O’Neill pointed out that the need for local dialysis treatments was great, since travelling to the city multiple times a week put a huge strain on patients and their families.
The unit was eventually completed in late 2018, following extensive renovations to the space.
In addition to all the major milestones, which also include colonoscopy equipment and other expensive buys, the foundation’s administrator Marlie Armstrong pointed to all the relatively small items that the foundation purchases at the request of local management, such as specialized wheelchairs, carts or other equipment.
“How it starts usually is with a manager and with a doctor,” she said. “The old process was very simple; the manager talked to the director general and they had a priority list, the managers were to make a three-year priority list. Then they would put in a request to the foundation … Now, the process is a little different, it seems to be working a little better, the manager sends it to their manager in the city and they approve it or disapprove it, then they purchase it, and they send us the bill. But in the meantime the manager tells us about it and I get a motion from our board members.”
O’Neill stated that while the smaller purchases might not have the same grandeur as the major projects, they significantly improve the patient’s experience.
“The small stuff adds up because it’s the things that give quality to those that are there, for example oversized wheelchairs, which CISSSO may not think as important, but has been identified by people here as being important,” he said, pointing as well to the purchase of a second BIS monitor, which keeps track of patients under anesthesia. They previously only had one to share between two operating rooms.
“It might not seem big, but these are the things that will make a difference when it comes to quality of care for the people,” he added.
Armstrong (whom Dean affectionately calls “the boss”) said that donations have been down this year, and she suspected COVID-19 and the lack of in person fundraising events as the culprit.
“This is a different year,” she said. “Usually I make between 1,000 and 2,000 receipts. This year I would maybe be at … 200, 220. It’s down. People aren’t out and about.”
Dean added that they haven’t been able to meet as a group in person for a year, but was excited to start on a new project, the revamping of the hospital’s oncology unit. He explained that the current space is being shared with day medicine and could hopefully be enlarged when the project moves forward. The exact details still have to be worked out, but he said that he is hopeful that patient’s experiences can be improved.
“That will be the foundation of what we’re going to put on the table, get the discussion going,” he said. “We’re not talking a huge amount of money, but we’re talking about a tremendous need in our community … The space is at a bit of a premium at the hospital, understandably. The oncology unit we have now is probably OK, but … it’s not to the level that we expect the services in our hospital to be.”
He added that they would also be looking into the reintroduction of a “pilot nurse” to address patient concerns, as well as teleconferencing with specialists, similar to what’s done in the dialysis unit.
“The benefit of all of that is the patient,” he said. “They’re going through a bit of a rough time, there’s some side effects every time they go through that, so we have to make them feel comfortable. The more comfortable you make the patient feel, the quicker their mental and physical recuperation is going to be.”
He stressed that even though the hospital’s administration has been amalgamated with the rest of the region, the donations to the foundation are only spent locally.
Donations can be made directly at the foundation’s office in the hospital’s main lobby, by mail or through their website, fhcpontiac.org.
