At its annual general meeting held on Tuesday, June 11, Nettie Stupnikoff, treasurer for the foundation told fellow directors that thanks to the generosity of the community, business and organizations, the foundation was able to make several purchases which will greatly benefit Castlegar and area.
“We have a wonderful community with a lot of generous people,” Stupnikoff said.
Specifically, last year’s donations totaled almost $55,000. Some $30,000 of those donations came from the Light Up the Hospital campaign. Stupnikoff also credits Castlegar and District Hospital Auxiliary Society for its unceasing hard work in helping support CDHF’s efforts.
“The auxiliary is an integral part of our donor network,” added Stupnikoff.
The combined donations helped purchase, in part, three Spacelab cardiac monitors, a state-of-the-art cardiac monitoring and information system worth $54,000.
Of that $54,000, the Hospital Auxiliary donated $18,000, while CDHF raised $36,000 towards the purchase.
“This included donations from the people within the community, local organizations, businesses and foundation. Without support of all these individuals, the foundation would not be able to provide much-needed equipment to the emergency department at Castlegar and District Community Health Centre,” explained Stupnikoff who added that the equipment is exclusively for the Castlegar Health Centre.
Those cardiac information systems are linked internally, which will enable the nurse on duty to view other monitors while at another patient’s bedside.
Besides being linked within the emergency room, the monitors are also linked with Kelowna Hospital and other Interior Health sites, thus enabling an emergency room physician in Castlegar to speak with an offsite specialist using real-time patient monitoring data.
According to the CDHF website, “This will improve patient care and comfort and augment treatment options for Castlegar physicians. In critical situations when life saving measures are occurring, the nurse or physician will be able to print out the data from the monitor at any time during or after the event to ensure that documentation standards for ER are met.”
As well, CDHF and the Hospital Auxiliary donated $15,440.80 toward repair and maintenance of the kitchen at Talarico Place. The hospital foundation raised $4,983 of that through garage sales, while the auxiliary chipped in $10,457.80.
“We were able to give back to Talarico Place and they upgraded their kitchen,” said Stupnikoff.
The final piece of business at the AGM included the election of officers and directors. It was unanimously agreed that the present directors be reappointed.
Those directors are: Margaret Nickle, president; Dr. Joan Snyder, vice-president; Beverly Chernoff, secretary; Nettie Stupnikoff, treasurer; directors at large Gil Heney; auxiliary liaison, Polly Chernoff, John Voykin and Caroline Kavaloff; Sally Simmons, office support; Sherley Gorkoff, financial and administration support, Bonny Verigin.
Stupnikoff said CDHF is always looking for new members. If you are interested in helping, please call 250-365-6187 or 250-365-6587.
She also thanked all of the directors and support people for their ongoing hard work.
For more information, please visit http://www.castlegarhospitalfoundation.org/
