Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation

Urgent Needs Campaign: $1.6 million

Your support helps save lives across BC

This year, with support from the community, RCH Foundation will raise over $1.6 million to fund much-needed equipment and patient care enhancements throughout the hospital. RCH is the major trauma centre for 1.5 million people from Burnaby to Boston Bar, and is the region’s heart centre - the only hospital to provide open heart surgery and cardiac catheterization. As the region’s major referral hospital for neurosurgery, renal care, high risk maternity and newborn intensive care RCH must be equipped to serve the largest and fastest growing region in the province.

incubator
Providing life-saving equipment for patients of all ages

At Royal Columbian Hospital, lives are saved every day and night in many different units. In the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), a ventilator provides oxygen for a critically ill patient fighting for his life. Down the hall in the Neonatal ICU, parents watch their premature baby daughter being kept alive in an incubator. And on the main floor in the ER, doctors use a defibrillator to restart an active grandfather’s heart.

Throughout the hospital, from room to room and patient to patient, critical equipment is needed to save lives at Royal Columbian Hospital (RCH). However each year, physicians, nurses and other staff throughout the hospital are challenged to continue providing the best patient care possible with old or out-of-date equipment or with limited resources.

These are the types of equipment your gift will help fund:

Retina Camera	COST: $101,775*
Helps to prevent and monitor the progression of Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP), an eye disease that can cause blindness in premature and low birth weight babies..
Blood Analyzer	COST: $34,500*
Provides an immediate and more accurate diagnosis of trauma patients in situations where every moment counts.
Ventilator	COST: $69,000*
A ventilator is life-critical. It helps patients breathe when they can’t breathe on their own.
* Includes installation and administration costs.
Detailed Equipment List

It’s a fact that the population is growing and aging and putting more pressure on the health care system. RCH provides care for the largest and fastest growing region in the province and even with government funding, the hospital is struggling to keep up with demand.

This spring, the Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation (RCHF) has launched its annual Urgent Needs Campaign – to raise $1.6 million to buy vital equipment for units throughout the hospital.

“Physicians and staff rely on the Foundation each year to help fund their departments’ urgent equipment needs,” says Adrienne Bakker, President and CEO of the RCH Foundation. “There are so many needs throughout the hospital and we are grateful for donor support to help us fund life-saving equipment for patients at RCH.”

“Donor support truly helps us build on government funding and meet growing annual equipment needs,” says Gillian Harwood, Executive Director of RCH.

With the help of caring individuals, organizations and corporations in the community, the RCH Foundation looks forward to meeting the growing needs of the hospital in 2008 to achieve a higher standard of patient care.