Produced in support of the Victoria Hospitals Foundation
A $10 million campaign to fund 200+ equipment pieces for Victoria hospitals VICTORIAHF.CA /GIVE-TODAY
DONATIONS MATCHED FOR A LIMITED TIME YOUR IMPACT TO HELP OUR HOSPITALS WILL BE DOUBLED
BREAKTHROUGHS IN LOCAL CARE START HERE
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Our community can support the caregivers in Victoria hospitals by helping raise the final $3 million of the Victoria Hospitals Foundation’s $10 million pandemic response campaign, Emerge Stronger.
FUEL THE BRILLIANT MINDS IN VICTORIA HOSPITALS COMMUNITY SUPPORT TRANSFORMS STANDARD CARE INTO STATE-OF-THE-ART CARE
Victoria Hospitals Foundation launches Innovation, the third and final phase of the $10 million Emerge Stronger campaign. Since the launch of the Victoria Hospitals Foundation’s $10 million fundraising campaign, Emerge Stronger, in October 2021, more than 4,300 community members have united to raise over $7 million to support every area of care within the three hospitals the Foundation serves: Royal Jubilee, Victoria General, and Gorge Road hospitals.
The campaign’s first phase, Recovery, raised $4 million to help Victoria hospitals recover services and upgrade priority equipment impacted by the pandemic. The second phase, Local Care, raised $3 million to support Island-first advancements in our hospitals to keep patients close to home while they heal. Now, the final phase, Innovation, centres on raising $3 million for ground-breaking research and equipment that allows our care teams to deliver more efficiently now, and into the future. For patients who are waiting for breakthroughs in care, your support can’t come quickly enough.
INNOVATION PHASE: $3 MILLION INNOVATIVE RESEARCH PROJECTS
NEW & ADVANCED EQUIPMENT
Your giving can be the catalyst that a clinician needs to transform their novel idea into reality. Help develop new care methods today by supporting research projects in our hospitals.
You can help fund new and improved equipment our care teams have asked for. New equipment has the power to significantly improve care for Island physicians and their patients.
nnovation in our hospitals truly begins with a clinician who wants to change the life of a patient, and a passionate community who is willing to stand behind them. Our donors helped our hospitals work towards Avery Brohman, CEO, recovering from Victoria Hospitals Foundation the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic with priority equipment upgrades and enabled local care advancements on Vancouver Island. I sincerely thank you for responding, all 4,300 of our donors who supported the first two phases of our Emerge Stronger campaign. As we turn to the next and final phase of Emerge Stronger, our hospitals need our community’s continued support as they innovate for a better future. Together with your help, we aim to raise $3 million for ground-breaking research and equipment that will allow our care teams to deliver care more effectively now, and in the future. And I know that achieving true excellence requires vision and leadership. Even the brightest minds can only accomplish so much without the resources they need to make their ideas a reality. The most innovative healthcare systems in the country have the most philanthropic support. Many people don’t know that donors fund 40% of the equipment at Royal Jubilee and Victoria General hospitals, or that our hospitals are referral centres for more than 860,000 Vancouver Islanders. We know you are asking for new ways for care to be delivered. You are asking for change. Together, with our clinicians and researchers, we are committed to responding. When community members like you support innovation and research, you empower profound medical advancements that can significantly impact someone’s care and quality of life, and even prevent them from needing to step foot inside our hospitals at all. Our donors are truly the catalysts that enable our clinicians’ transformative research—research that simply would not be possible without this support. I hope you will read the following stories and letters from within our hospitals. They share the perspectives of some of our hospitals’ brightest minds, most dedicated clinicians, and most grateful patients. Together, they highlight just how much community support can achieve for the healthcare we all rely on. I’m also proud and grateful to share that Peninsula Co-op will match all donations up to a total of $100,000 for the Innovation phase until March 31, 2023. This is your opportunity to have your gift matched and make an immense and lasting impact on the future of care in our local hospitals—and beyond. Avery Brohman CEO, Victoria Hospitals Foundation
Victoria mother given a “second chance at life” after 1% chance of survival
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n the night of Novembrain surgery, my physician ber 11, 2021, I put my said that I had a 1% chance six-year-old daughter to of survival—and even if I did bed like I always do— survive, I was going to be in the but the hard part is that I don’t hospital for six months, learnremember saying goodnight ing how to walk and talk again. to her. I felt really They were unsure tired and decided to how much function I go to sleep. would regain. It was Then I woke up devastating news for at 3:45 in the mornmy family. ing with a terrible Thankfully, I headache, and I had an incredible collapsed. surgeon, and she My husband got me through the Matt called an surgery, reporting ambulance and I afterwards that she was transported to was confident she Victoria General got all of the blood Hospital. A nurse out of my brain. It Sara with her daughter was a miracle. took him to the family room and After the surgently told him, “I’m so sorry. gery, I continued to get better Your wife has had a catastrophic and better. And the nurses brain hemorrhage and she’s not were wonderful. They pushed likely to make it. You need to me and challenged me through start making some phone calls.” my recovery, and it was exactAs I was being prepped for ly what I needed. Incredibly,
I was talking immediately and walking within a couple of days. About three and a half weeks later, I was able to go home. Today, I am grateful to be part of a community that cares about healthcare. If it could happen to me, it can happen to anyone. If we want the healthcare that is going to save us, our community has to step up to advance the care we all rely on. I had a 99% chance of not being here, and that changes you. Every morning when I
‘‘ Dr. Chris Hall Emergency Physician & Executive Medical Director, Island Health
The role of chemistry was crucial in Sara’s early care when she was in the Intensive Care Unit. Testing helped watch how her brain was reacting to her devastating injury and manage her fluids and her electrolytes while she couldn’t eat or drink. It was pivotal to making sure that her brain was recovering in a stable environment.”
Sara Brownlee Grateful patient, Victoria resident, public servant, wife, and mother
Sara in the Intensive Care Unit after her life-saving surgery
Sara was unconscious before and after her surgery. Though she was unable to speak, her care teams were constantly responding to her needs by running tests in the background—including blood samples just like the ones that are processed through the Chemistry Line at Royal Jubilee Hospital (RJH). Sara is just one of thousands of patients on Vancouver Island who require vital blood tests to monitor their status, sometimes as often as every 30 minutes. You can help ensure these urgent requests are processed as quickly and as accurately as possible by helping fund a new $2.1 million Automated Chemistry Line for Royal Jubilee Hospital through the Emerge Stronger campaign by visiting victoriahf.ca/give-today or calling 250-519-1750.
‘‘ Wilson Louie Chief Technologist, Island Health
wake up, it’s a gift. There aren’t words to describe it. When I came home from the hospital and saw my daughter, it was just unbelievable to know that I was there holding her. I kept saying, “Mommy’s okay.” I can’t believe that I’m here and I get to experience life with her again. The care I received truly gave me a second chance.
Our current Chemistry Line is over 20 years old which means it needs a lot of maintenance. It does affect our patients. It does affect our time to get results. And it affects how our physicians can take care of our patients. The new automation line, being new and being more up-todate, will certainly get the samples to the analyzers much quicker.”
DIAGNOSTICS
Automated Chemistry Line Royal Jubilee Hospital $2,175,000 • Conducts tests on patient samples such as blood • Will replace current 20-year-old Chemistry Line (most-used equipment in Island Health) • Can run over 1,200 tests per hour (current system can run about 1,000 tests per day)
• Can complete an electrolyte panel 15 minutes faster than current system • Equipped with an emergent test track to fast-track samples needing urgent results