The South Cariboo Health Foundation (SCHF) spring 2016 fundraisers helped the 100 Mile District General Hospital gain an important intubator.
Fundraising co-ordinator Brenda Devine says the GlideScope was purchased with about $26,000 raised by the SCHF in its spring fundraisers, including its “Just for the Health of It” campaign.
The idea was put forward to Central GM owner Tom Bachinsky, who was “very good about” going along with their plan, she explains.
“I asked him if he wouldn’t mind giving us some of the money out of his sales of his cars and his trucks for the month [of April 2016], and he was quite good about doing that.”
Devine says that raised about $6,000 including “top-up” dollars from Bachynski himself, and the rest came from other 2016 fundraising and donations.
Hospital chief of staff Dr. Gordon Hutchinson says when SCHF heard he was going down to take a medical airway management course at the annual St. Paul’s Emergency Medicine Update Conference in Whistler, the SCHF asked him if he would choose the appropriate video laryngoscope for the hospital.
Without a GlideScope intubator, in order for the medical professional to see the vocal cords properly, a light also must be inserted which further strains the neck in getting both pieces into the trachea.
Hutchinson adds the nice thing about the GlideScope is that in bypassing all the usual manipulation of the neck, it allows the doctor or nurse to intubate the patient with a much smaller tube, all the while watching a video on a larger monitor set on the mobile equipment stand.
One important benefit of this is when they are treating a patient with a potential neck injury, they can typically get the oxygen tube down into the trachea with less neck stretching as they view the vocal cords to be sure they get it placed correctly, and quickly, he explains.
