Donors help Royal Columbian purchase world’s smallest heart-lung machine
A medical team from Royal Columbian Hospital that is called upon by the region’s other hospitals to take over the care of critically ill patients is now travelling much lighter thanks to donors to Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation.
Generous support has allowed the hospital’s Extracorporeal Life Support (ECLS) team – the only mobile retrieval team of its kind in the province – to become the first in British Columbia to acquire the CARDIOHELP system, a portable machine that takes over the function of the heart and lungs when a patient’s health is rapidly deteriorating.
Peter Rogal’s Story
Halloween is always a huge affair in the Rogal household. Peter and his family carve over a hundred pumpkins that are put on display each year outside their Tsawwassen home. But unbeknownst to the Rogals, October 31, 2013, would end up being part of much darker episode that brought Peter to the brink of death and back again.