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“Good health is something that we often take for granted. We tend not to think much about it until something happens to us…or one of our loved ones” said Dr. Laura Kelly, Emergency Physician, RMH.
New and updated equipment is required every year to ensure that our physicians, surgeons, nurses and health care staff can provide the best possible care to the 95,000 residents in our communities.
Ridge Meadows Hospital Foundation is proud to invest in your health by funding several pieces of urgently needed, life saving equipment each year. In addition, we support a number of community initiatives that support a healthy lifestyle and healthy choices.
Ridge Meadows Hospital Foundation's values are:
- To improve the health of the citizens of Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows
- Encourage efficient use of community resources
- Demonstrate innovative approaches and techniques to solve community health issues, and build capacity.
- Address the root causes of health issues in our communities
- Promote cooperation and partnership among organizations to minimize the potential for duplication of services
- Strengthen an organization’s capacity to be sustainable
Please, partner with us. Your donations will benefit the entire community. This year, we are funding several pieces of equipment and programs including:
Defibrillator for Emergency Department
Who will be seen in Emergency today? It could be your neighbor with signs of a stroke, or a friend who was injured in a car accident, or even your spouse or family member having chest pains.
Having the right equipment at the right time is imperative.
The Emergency department at Ridge Meadows Hospital sees over 32,000 patients annually. Those patients arriving with chest pains are a priority.
The two most common causes of sudden cardiac death are ventricular fibrillation and pulseless ventricular tachycardia. Defibrillation is the most effective treatment. Defibrillation works by delivering a dose of electrical current to the heart of the patient, thereby depolarizing a critical mass of the heart muscle, which terminates the life threatening arrhythmia, and allows a coordinated heart rhythm to return.
The defibrillators are used daily and often, and more than one is needed at the same time. |
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Health Information Resource Center at Ridge Meadows Hospital
An existing, vacant space on the main floor of RMH is being renovated to create a Health Information Resource Centre (HIRC) to support patient and family access to medical and community support information. The HIRC is envisioned as a centrally located space for patients, family members and friends to access health information, community support resource information and local resources. This center will support patient-centered care and health literacy using primarily electronic means to provide access to health information which will allow patients to participate in health care decision making. |
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HIVE Community Kitchen
Research has shown that good health is correlated to good nutrition. As a pilot project, Ridge Meadows Hospital Foundation will be funding a Community Kitchen for a period of 12 months. In order to teach participants about good nutrition, monthly cooking classes, will be provided free of charge, to residents of Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows who are living below the poverty line. The participants will learn budgeting skills, learn about inexpensive ingredients and how to cook them. They will be taken on a shopping tour to learn about healthy ingredients and shown how little nutrition is derived from processed foods. As well, they will be connected to additional support services like the Hive School Neighborhood Garden. They will each have a collection of 60-80 nutritious recipes that can be easily prepared for a family on a tight budget. The program will increase their social connections with people who share similar struggles and through this, diminish social isolation. |
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Micro Typing System (MTS) Workstation for the Laboratory
This equipment is used to screen patient samples for atypical antibodies and cross match blood for patients. Examples of the need for this kind of screening may be a woman in labor requiring a C-section; a scheduled surgical patient; a critically ill patient in our ICU or the victim of a serious motor vehicle accident, or a cancer patient requiring supportive therapy. In each situation a cross match is required and this essential equipment is utilized.
When a patient is scheduled for surgery, or has low hemoglobin due to cancer or other illness, they are asked to come to the lab and give a blood sample for a Group and Screen. The MTS Incubator and Centrifuge is used to determine if unexpected antibodies are not present in the patient’s blood. Antibodies are not an unexpected finding in patients but if not detected, may be harmful and shorten the survival of the red blood cells transfused. Typically, a patient might produce antibodies as a result of a pregnancy or previous blood transfusion. If there are antibodies, then further testing is required to determine a match for the patient.
Without this critical step, incompatible blood could be transfused complicating the patients’ condition by causing blood to agglutinate (clump). This further complicates a patient’s health by putting extra strain on the organs; particularly the liver and kidneys. |
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Patient Lift for Home Health Clinic
Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows Home Health provides care to clients in the community and also offers outpatient nursing care in a clinic setting within the Home Health office. Services that can be offered in the clinic range from rehabilitation, wound care, IV antibiotic treatment, social work, occupational therapy and physiotherapy consultations and client education related to chronic disease/pain management.
A ceiling track lift system to include 3 slings and a client weighing scale for the Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows Home Health Clinic is required to assist in lifting and transferring individuals challenged by mobility impairment. A patient lift is essential to transfer patients who are immobile from bed to commode, chair, etc
Presently, “lift dependent” (non-weight bearing) clients, and clients who may be unpredictable with balance, are unable to be treated or assessed in the clinic as they cannot be safely transferred. |
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Respiratory Transport Ventilator for Respiratory
Critically ill patients in an urgent situation receive the ABC’s of critical care – A is airway. B is breathing. C is circulation. The respiratory transport ventilator is essential to ensuring the patient is breathing. During transport from Ridge Meadows Hospital to another healthcare centre our team is on high alert making sure the same level of intensive care goes with them. A mobile intensive care unit for critical ill patients is difficult to do during transport, however, it is essential. Due to the vibration and noise while in an ambulance it is very difficult to determine if a patient is breathing. This small, battery operated ventilator monitors the patient’s breathing and forces air into the lungs when the patient fails to do so on their own. The equipment is small, portable, battery powered and designed to withstand the rigors of transport. The respiratory transport ventilator is essential to a successful transfer of a critically ill patient. |
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Transport Monitor Defibrillator for Emergency
When people think of transport they picture a patient in an ambulance being taken to another hospital but in reality transport includes patients being moved between departments within Ridge Meadows Hospital much more often. At Ridge Meadows Hospital, we take the intensive care unit with the patient on our transfers. We ensure that we monitor the patient carefully during transports. Using the transport monitor defibrillator we can use the pacemaker function to speed up a slow heart rate and, if necessary, use the defibrillator to restore an irregular rhythm back to normal. When a patient arrives at Emergency with suspected heart problems, the physician may send them for X-rays, a CT Scan or determine that they require surgery. In order to ensure the heart is maintaining a regular heart beat, the patient will be moved to these departments with a transport monitor defibrillator. The monitor tracks the heartbeat of a patient and administers a shock causing the heart to beat each time the natural internal pacer fails to work. In an emergency situation the monitor can deliver 60 zaps per minute in order to keep a patients heart beating. The transport monitor defibrillators are used daily and often more than one is needed at the same time. |
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Wheelchairs
This year we are replenishing the supply of wheelchairs and other walking aids at Ridge Meadows Hospital. New wheelchairs and walkers will provide a number of benefits for our patients including access to transportation, early mobilization after surgery and rehabilitation during recovery from serious health problems such as strokes. In addition the new equipment will meet the patient safety and comfort needs identified by our Physiotherapists and Occupational Therapists |
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Exercise Tolerance Test for Cardiology
An Exercise Tolerance test or ETT is one of the first diagnostic tests administered to screen for blockage of arteries or damage to the heart. This test records your heart’s response to the stress of exercise. This non invasive test is done by hooking up the patient to a heart monitor and having them go through a pre-programmed exercise regime on a specialized treadmill. The ETT measures your heart’s activity, blood pressure and heart rate while exercising. |
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Gastroscope for Ambulatory Care
Gastroscopy is an examination of the inside of the gullet, stomach and duodenum. A doctor will order this kind of test when the patient presents with stomach problems. It is performed by using a thin, flexible fibre-optic instrument that is passed through the mouth and allows the doctor to see whether there is any damage to the lining of the oesophagus (gullet) or stomach, and/or whether there are any ulcers in the stomach or duodenum.
The advantages of gastroscopy are numerous. The doctor can study the mucous membrane of the stomach from the top to the bottom, and see irritation, wounds, or tumours. Gastroscopy is effective, and has now replaced the use of x-rays in many cases. It helps the doctor see any abnormalities in the gullet, the stomach and the duodenum. It is precise and safe. |
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It's a Girl's World - New Program
"It's A Girls World”, offered in partnership with Maple Ridge Parks & Leisure and School District # 42, is a program designed for girls in grades two to seven encouraging living a healthy lifestyle. By giving them an opportunity to try a variety of sports and programs, encouraging healthy body image and promoting self confidence, the girls are exposed to information on healthy lifestyle choices and that an active lifestyle can be fun and, at the same time, healthy. The program will operate out of two local elementary schools that have been identified as having a very high percentage of children living below the poverty lines. Children who live in poverty have many barriers to accessing recreation programs including lack of funding, lack of transportation, limited access to appropriate equipment and poor parental role modeling for active and health lifestyle choices. By offering this program to girls during the school day we are able to reduce these barriers. |
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Patient Comfort Cupboard
This year one of the new priority projects for which we are fundraising is a Patient Comfort Cupboard. The need for a patient supply cupboard has been identified by frontline hospital staff as a means to maintain the patient dignity through the provision of necessities and extra comforts for patients who have financial challenges, urgent need, or lack of family support. Sometimes when patients are admitted to the hospital they do not have even the most basic of personal items. For patients in this difficult situation, we will have a supply of small personal hygiene bags containing a hairbrush, shampoo, toothpaste and toothbrush, shaving cream and a razor. The cupboard will also be filled with shoes, slippers, socks, undergarments, track pants, shirts and jackets to be given to patients in extraordinary circumstances who may not have appropriate clothing for discharge. By providing these basic necessities we can decrease the length of time patients are waiting to be discharged and this, in turn, will improve access to hospital beds for others. With immediate access to these supplies, these frontline personnel will be able to focus their time on their highest priority - providing medical care rather than looking for clothing for a patient. |
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Patient Controlled Analgesia (PCA) Infusion Pump for Surgical
A PCA Infusion Pump is used for all types of acute and chronic pain management including IV and epidural PCA, surgical site infusions and regional nerve blocks. They are small, lightweight and portable which enhances patient mobility, comfort and recovery. Medical dosages can be modified during treatment to meet the unique needs of each patient. |
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For information on how you can help the foundation fund this equipment please click here to contact Annika Polegato or phone 604.466.6925.
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