Your Health Matters spring 2021

ROYAL COLUMBIAN HOSPITAL FOUNDATION MAGAZINE

Your Health Matters SPRING/SUMMER 2021 EDITION

IN THIS ISSUE

+ CARE DURING COVID Recognizing the frontlines during the pandemic

+ CONDITION CRITICAL Langley man spends months in care with near fatal case of COVID-19

+ LASTING MEMORIES Sherbrooke Centre’s time comes to an end as phase 2 of redevelopment moves ahead

+ RECORD BREAKER New Westminster resident longest-living recipient of aortic valve procedure Critical care physician Dr. Robert Sharpe

THIS MAGAZINE BROUGHT TO YOU WITH GENEROUS SUPPORT FROM

caring for caregivers It is part of the nature of healthcare providers to show compassion for people’s wellbeing. For the last year, while COVID-19 has continued its global spread, Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation has paid particular attention to the wellbeing of our hospital family as they face the numerous challenges brought on by the pandemic. With our immense gratitude to donors who have come forward to help generously, we have worked closely with the hospital to provide the resources and support so urgently needed by our front-line healthcare workers and other groups vital to Royal Columbian.

In this issue of Your Health Matters, we document some of the stories and images from the pandemic. This includes a collage of photos taken by anesthesiologist Dr. Paula Meyler of her colleagues in areas of the hospital, like the ER and the ICU, that have been at the forefront of the care delivered to patients who have contracted COVID-19.

In addition to its role as a primary COVID-19 site, Royal Columbian has continued to provide care for a variety of illnesses or injuries during the pandemic. We are once again grateful to those who have shared their experiences in this publication. We also take a moment to capture the history of the Sherbrooke Centre, as it makes way for construction of the new Acute Care Tower during phase 2 of Royal Columbian’s redevelopment.

Take care and stay safe.

tom corsie

Chair, Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation

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Jeff norris

President & CEO, Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation

Your Health Matters

contents

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Jeff Norris

VOLUME 7 • ISSUE 1

EDITOR/WRITER Jason Howe CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Catherine Cornish Carrie Stefanson CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Simon Hayter Dr. Paula Meyler Nathalie Taylor Jerald Walliser LAYOUT & DESIGN Gary Slavin COVER DESIGN Paula Heal PUBLISHED BY New Westminster Record

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ROYAL COLUMBIAN HOSPITAL FOUNDATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS chair: Tom Corsie vice chair: Cameron Belsher treasurer: Catherine Ruby secretary: Jennifer Podmore Russell president and ceo: Jeff Norris directors: Dr. Sukh Brar, Frank Butzelaar, Doug Eveneshen, Farid Rohani, Dr. William Siu, Emily Taylor, Norm Taylor, Rana Vig, Fred Withers

We welcome your comments on Your Health Matters magazine.

Please email info@rchfoundation.com or write to us c/o Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation, 330 East Columbia Street, New Westminster, BC V3L 3W7.

Established in 1978, Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation raises millions of dollars annually to purchase medical equipment, fund innovative programs, and support training and research.

To donate, please visit www.rchfoundation.com or call 604-520-4438.

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greetings

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inspired giving

Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation Chair Tom Corsie and Foundation President and CEO Jeff Norris

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New Westminster resident longest-living recipient of aortic valve procedure

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deep affection

Married for almost 61 years, John and Jennie Hik shared a decades-long commitment to supporting patient care

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lasting memories

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condition critical

Sherbrooke Centre’s time comes to an end as phase 2 of redevelopment moves ahead Langley man spends months in care with near fatal case of COVID-19

a friendship forged

NICU moms form strong bond during hospital stay

Behind-the-scenes briefs

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record breaker

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remotely speaking

Virtual cardiac care showing good results at Royal Columbian

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silent danger

Young man with high blood pressure suffers aortic dissection

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pain signals

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foresight and wisdom

Royal Columbian neurosurgeon provides the relief Surrey resident desperately needed Q&A with inaugural 1862 Council recipient David McDonald

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InSpIRed GIVING In the face of numerous challenges brought on by the pandemic, Royal Columbian Hospital’s caregivers have demonstrated their dedication and resolve during the past year. With help from anesthesiologist Dr. Paula Meyler, who photographed her colleagues on our behalf, we pay tribute to those who are providing care during COVID.

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A patient bay in the cardiac catheterization lab was named in honour of Jennie and John Hik in 2017.

his bike for miles to visit his sweetheart.

“One time he was peddling along Serpentine Road just about a quartermile from our place, and there were cows in the middle of the road. It was dark.

And wham, he ran right into a cow,” Jennie laughs.

In 1957, John and Jennie got married in Fleetwood Church, and later settled on a farm in Surrey owned by Jennie’s parents.

They were soon blessed with three children: Shellie, Brian, and David.

Married for While Jennie cared for the children, almost 61 years, John established himself in what John and Jennie Hik would be a successful 60-year career in construction management. With his shared a two business partners, he grew Seaward decades-long Construction, a commercial construction commitment to company based in Surrey, into a booming business. “He was very passionate about supporting his work. He often joked about putting up patient care a cot in his office,” says Jennie. “I don’t think he ever would have retired.”

In October of 1990, after both Jennie and her father were treated for heart John and Jennie Hik met while attacks at Royal Columbian, John and attending North Surrey High in the Jennie decided to create the Cornelius 1950s. The first thing that Jennie noticed Friesen Education Fund for Cardiac about John? “Probably his long, lean Nursing Education. Jennie says, “I felt looks. He was lanky. He was the tallest that Dad had been treated well. And so one in the class,” remembers Jennie. had I. I just wanted to give back.”

During their courtship, John often rode In addition to making financial

Deep

affection

donations to the hospital foundation, Jennie contributed her time with the Royal Columbian Hospital Auxiliary.

For several years, she volunteered in the gift shop and lottery booth.

John and Jennie continued to give, investing in life-saving equipment for a number of areas throughout the hospital for the next 30 years. They were planning their gift towards the hospital’s redevelopment when John was diagnosed with acute leukemia in December of 2017. Two months later, he passed away at Royal Columbian.

The experience of saying goodbye to John helped Jennie decide how she wanted to support the redevelopment. During John’s last days, loved ones spent many hours by his side in one of the hospital’s small, plain end-of-life rooms. Jennie wants to make sure that future patients receiving palliative care and their families have a private, comforting space and the amenities they need during what is often a very difficult time. She and her family will be funding a new palliative care room in the Acute Care Tower in honour of John.

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Redevelopment feature

Lasting memories

Sherbrooke Centre’s time comes to an end as phase 2 of redevelopment moves ahead When the Royal Columbian Hospital School of Nursing opened its nurses’ residence in Sherbrooke Centre in 1963, guests would present themselves to the ‘house mother’ who used an intercom to alert young nursing students.

“The house mother was also tasked with keeping the boys out,” laughs Eileen Brown, who spent her entire nursing career at Royal Columbian Hospital before retiring a couple of years ago.

Eileen and her close friend Carol Schmidt were both born at Royal Columbian, attended nursing school in Sherbrooke Centre and later worked at the hospital in various departments including trauma, orthopaedics, TOP: Preliminary design concept for new Acute Care Tower scheduled to open in 2024.

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ambulatory care, and the postanesthesia care unit (PACU).

End of an era History is now winding down for the Sherbrooke Centre, which is being demolished as part of the hospital’s $1.49 billion redevelopment.

Deconstruction of the building started last fall.

It had a couple of iterations during its lifetime. After its final nursing class in 1978, the Sherbrooke Centre reopened officially on February 27, 1981 as home to the hospital’s Department of Psychiatry. It remained so until the summer of 2020, when the program moved into the new Mental Health and Substance Use Wellness Centre as part of phase 1 of the hospital’s redevelopment.

Phase two of redevelopment will create a new Acute Care Tower in 2024, becoming the heartbeat of the hospital with many of its busiest departments.

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They include an expanded emergency department, which is scheduled for the main floor of the new tower. Total space will increase by more than half as the new ER grows to 75 state-of-the-art treatment bays. It will include the new Jack Gin Emergency & Trauma Imaging Centre, strategically placed within the ER to drastically speed up access to diagnostic procedures.

The Acute Care Tower will contain an “interventional super floor” with eight interventional suites to be used for either interventional cardiology or radiology.

Care for expectant moms, newborns, and children will undergo a major transformation with expanded facilities for the pediatric, maternity, and neonatal intensive care programs.

A 60-bed Critical Care floor will increase our capacity to care for some of our most ill and critically injured patients.

And the new building will include space to increase total operating rooms to 19.

Friendships formed “It’s exciting to know that BC’s oldest hospital will continue to meet the needs of the community and provide the best care for some of the most seriously ill patients in BC,” says Eileen.

She and Carol have fond memories of their three years spent living and training to be nurses at Sherbrooke Centre in the 1970s.

If the young nurses had a male visitor, they would meet in the designated ‘beau room’. As attitudes changed, meetings occurred in the lounge, and later in the nurses’ individual rooms.

“If a boy was visiting, you yelled out ‘man on the floor’, the minute he stepped out of the elevator, just in case someone was darting from the washroom in their underwear,” says Eileen.

Although Sherbrooke Centre will soon be gone, Carol and Eileen are grateful for the life-long friendships formed there.

“We still have reunions with our graduating class of 1978, and we stay in touch. We went through some very intense times together, and those memories will be with us forever.”

The Sherbrooke Centre became home of the Department of Psychiatry in 1981 until the program moved to the new Mental Health and Substance Use Wellness Centre in the summer of 2020.

Retired nurses Carol Schmidt and Eileen Brown, outside the Sherbrooke Centre.

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Condition critical Langley man spends months in care with near-fatal case of COVID-19 Roger Pinette had been feeling unwell for a few days, struggling with a bad cough, headaches, a fever, and fatigue. They are the type of symptoms that have come to be associated with COVID-19, but back in early March 2020 it was not yet front and centre in people’s minds. It would be several weeks before the 72-year-old Langley resident would learn he had contracted a near fatal case of the respiratory illness, only hearing the news after he had awoken from a lengthy stay in Royal Columbian Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit.

“The (pandemic) curve was a flat line at the beginning of March,” says Roger. “The family had no suspicion that it was COVID. I think had it happened later, we would have been more suspicious.”

As his condition deteriorated at home, Roger’s wife, brother, and daughter coaxed him into getting checked out. Within days of going to his local hospital, Roger was intubated and transferred to Royal Columbian, where he became among the hospital’s first COVID-positive critically ill patients to be ventilated in the ICU. “He was in relatively rough a shape, as a lot of people who have true COVID-19 are with severe hypoxemic respiratory failure,” says Dr. Robert Sharpe, a critical care physician at Royal Columbian Hospital. “He had quite bad

Roger Pinette while on a ventilator in hospital (photo supplied by family).

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Roger Pinette was hospitalized with COVID-19 during the early days of the pandemic and returned home months later.

inflammation of his lungs to the extent that it made it difficult for oxygen to diffuse.”

Slow recovery Amid concern over his prognosis and with visitors being restricted, the hospital provided regular updates on Roger’s condition to the family and set up virtual visits using an iPad. “They were really able to connect us to him, even though we were sort of helpless,” recalls daughter Celia. “They took my two daily phone calls with understanding. They played my voice recordings to my dad and read my mom’s letter to him. They FaceTimed

me as well as my sister in Germany so we could talk to him while he was asleep.”

It was difficult to wean the profoundly weakened Roger from mechanical ventilation.

“His breathing muscles had wasted away while the ventilator breathed for him,” notes Respiratory Therapy Clinical Supervisor Jason Zurba. “We needed to help him strengthen his muscles to a point where he could manage his own breathing without the ventilator.”

It also took weeks before a swab test finally came back negative for COVID-19. After a number of challenging and uncertain weeks, his condition improved enough that Roger was transported back to Langley’s hospital. Following a serious complication, he was then sent to Abbotsford before he completed his

recovery at New Westminster’s Queens Park Care Centre. He returned home in July, four months after first becoming ill.

Growing gratitude Roger says he is now feeling wonderful, despite the lasting effects of his critical illness. He regained most of his weight back, after losing as much as 50 pounds while in hospital.

“My lungs are going to require some time,” he adds. “My left side has nerve damage, but I’m doing some physio. I feel positive.”

Roger already had an appreciation for Royal Columbian after previously undergoing open heart surgery. His gratitude has only grown following this latest health crisis.

“They’re taking a great risk to take care of people like us that have such a serious virus,” he says.

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olga angus celebrated her 108th birthday in 2020, becoMing the world’s oldest known forMer tavi patient.

record breaker

new westMinster resident longest-living recipient of aortic valve procedure 10

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In mid-April 2020, while British Columbians were doing their part to flatten the curve during the pandemic’s first wave, New Westminster resident Olga Angus turned a remarkable 108-years-old. It’s an anniversary that is one for the record books worldwide, because of a lifesaving cardiac procedure seven years earlier at Royal Columbian Hospital.

In 2013, at the age of 101, Olga underwent a transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI), a minimally-invasive procedure that is performed at only a small number of hospitals in the province, including Royal Columbian.

“She was getting shortness of breath and some dizziness,” recalls her daughter Marilyn Negrin.

“She was tired, tired all the time. That’s unusual for her. She was always active. Even at 101, she still lived in her own home and was able to do a lot of her own housework.”

When aortic stenosis occurs, usually in older adults, it prevents the aortic valve from fully opening. Most patients who need treatment undergo open heart surgery to replace the valve with an artificial one.

But people who are considered high-risk are instead offered TAVI, which delivers a new valve by threading a catheter up from the groin artery to the heart without the need for a large surgical incision. Because of Olga’s age, Drs. Albert Chan and Tim Latham decided TAVI was her only option.

“In general, when we assess someone about the candidacy of TAVI, we look at their expected longevity,” explains Dr. Chan, an interventional cardiologist. “We usually want to see patients free of other terminal illness and to have a life expectancy of at least two years in order to benefit from the valve procedure.”

Lasting success Because Olga was otherwise in good health, the cardiac team felt she was a good candidate and could recover quickly. The former elementary school teacher became the oldest TAVI patient at Royal Columbian, and she is now believed to have lived longer than anyone else in the world who has undergone the procedure.

A day after the procedure, Olga was up again and was back home after the third day.

“I can remember mom asking the doctor at one of our checkups whether the procedure was going to prolong her life,” says Marilyn. “They explained to her at that time that it would not so much prolong her life, but that it was going to give her a better quality of life. But little did we know how well she’s done over all these years.”

A friendship forged NICU moms form strong bond during hospital stay

Brittany Lewins from Mackenzie and Madylon Christley from Kelowna were once complete strangers living at opposite ends of the province until their paths crossed at the Royal Colombian Hospital’s Variety Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Both had babies born at 27 weeks gestation, just three days apart.

They forged a forever friendship as they supported each other during their NICU journeys.

Brittany was 26 weeks pregnant when a doctor at a hospital in Prince George confirmed her water had broken after she started bleeding. She was told to phone her husband Tyler and immediately prepare for the flight to Royal Columbian. “We flew through a thunderstorm the entire way. It was terrifying,” says Brittany.

Baby Evan was born a few days later, weighing only 1,210 grams. Brittany and Evan would end up staying a total of 105 days in the NICU between Royal Columbian and Prince George. “Every day, it felt like there was something new to overcome,” she remembers. “We had good days and bad days. It was scary and rewarding at the same time.”

When she was 21 weeks pregnant, Madylon discovered she had no amniotic fluid due to preterm rupture of membranes. At BC Children’s, she was told her baby had a 5% chance of survival. She went home on strict bed rest and made it to 24 weeks, when she was flown to Royal Columbian. Husband Colby was right behind, following by car.

“Baby Lydia came out screaming, and Colby and I started bawling,” says Madylon. Lydia weighed just 1,070 grams at birth, and spent 99 days in the NICU between Royal Columbian and Kelowna General Hospital.

Like family After realizing they were neighbours at their hotel, Brittany and Madylon became fast friends. “We started doing everything together. I spent more time with Brittany than my own husband,”

says Madylon. They carpooled, went shopping together, and even invited each other to family dinners.

Both moms received support from Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation’s NICU Family Accommodation Fund and from Variety, the Children’s Charity.

This included their hotel stays, gift cards for gas and groceries, and breast pumps. Brittany recalls, “Having a place to stay took a lot of stress away. It’s so much at one time at the beginning. I don’t know what we would have done.”

Madylon adds, “Colby and I were overwhelmed with gratitude. To know

that there were people who cared enough about us to offer this support meant so much. They were totally in tune with what we needed. I have no words.”

Although they couldn’t get together for a planned reunion because of the pandemic, they managed to meet up in Williams Lake for lunch six months after discharge. “Madylon isn’t just my friend. She, Colby, and Lydia have become like family,” says Brittany. The two even have a running joke. “We both decided our children will get married,” laughs Madylon.

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reMotely speaking

virtual cardiac care showing good results at royal coluMbian Videoconferencing has quickly become a regular part of many of our lives ever since COVID-19 made physical distancing a top priority. Healthcare is no different, as hospitals and doctors’ offices shifted to telemedicine as a way to manage patient care during the pandemic. While the concept gained prominence in 2020, virtual consultations have been around for years and have shown some promising benefits at Royal Columbian Hospital with a group of cardiac patients.

“Towards the end of February, I suddenly had a lot of trouble breathing,” recalls Jennifer Newman of Langley. “It turned out I had atrial fibrillation. I was admitted to Langley Hospital.”

As a cardiac hub, Royal Columbian sees patients from throughout Fraser Health who require treatment or consultations. Typically, patients like Jennifer would be temporarily transferred to Royal Columbian for a quick cardiac consult to discuss treatment options. This could require transportation, a nurse escort, a bed, and a wait that sometimes lasts hours. Instead, Jennifer was able to connect with Royal Columbian’s experts directly from Langley by videoconference. “I talked to a surgeon and a nurse together at Royal Columbian, and I had my nurse with me during the interview to help explain afterwards anything that I wanted a bit more about,” says Jennifer.

Savings Since the program started in 2017 as a first of its kind in BC,

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nurse practitioner liz Mulvaney conducts virtual consults with patients froM all over the fraser health region.

Cardiac Network Clinical Nurse Specialist Clare Koning says cardiac virtual consults have shown a number of benefits.

“It’s saved a lot of money and time,” she explains. “For the patient, we’ve seen a 50% reduction in time to consultation, which is great.”

A cost analysis performed at the start of the program indicated that on average each virtual consultation results in a saving of $5,894 to the health system when compared to an in-person consult. Over two years, they have estimated total savings of more than $800,000.

The vast majority of these consults have involved electrophysiology, which treats conditions like atrial fibrillation. But the virtual program is now starting to include a small number of cardiac surgery consults too.

And after the pandemic was declared in March 2020, Fraser Health quickly moved to a virtual platform for its cardiac rehabilitation classes.

“I think we need more incorporation of technology in healthcare in a safe and meaningful way,” says Clare. “Fraser Health is really leading the way in this, creating a model that others can adopt.”

For Jennifer, who received a pacemaker to treat her heart condition, the benefits of virtual consults are clear.

“For something like a 15 minute interview, I think that it saves everyone’s time, just to be able to sit down and talk faceto-face but not physically, to not have to make that journey all the way into New Westminster. For me it was a big deal.”

Silent danger When the back pain started, 31-year-old Ty Vongnakhone first tried ointment and then a massage. Still, the pain was getting worse, so the Burnaby resident went to his local hospital.

There, a stunning diagnosis – an extensive type B aortic dissection. Soon, he was rushed to Royal Columbian Hospital, where he would spend the next five weeks under the care of a medical team that spanned multiple departments.

“You know, blood pressure is like a silent killer if you’re not really watching it,” Ty remarks almost three years later. “I didn’t really watch my blood pressure.”

Type B dissection involves a tear in the descending part of the aorta, which is the main artery that carries blood away from the heart to the rest of the body. While dissections are not a common injury, high blood pressure is a main cause, explains Dr. Matt Bernard, a Royal Columbian internal medicine specialist.

“You can imagine, you have this arching aorta, blood is coming up out of the heart, it’s hitting this curve, it’s being forced around the curve of the aorta, and over time that is going to have a certain amount of stress on the wall of the aorta, and it could cause a tear,” says Dr. Bernard. “So high blood pressure is a strong

risk factor.”

The first treatment for Type B dissections is usually not with surgery, but rather through aggressive blood pressure and heart rate control to allow the tear to begin to heal itself.

As Ty started to undergo this medical treatment, he faced another major threat – his kidneys were failing. Dr. Bernard says an aortic dissection can reduce the blood flow to organs like the kidneys, putting them at danger of acute injury.

“You might hope the person has enough kidney reserve that even if there is an initial insult to the kidneys that requires that person to go on dialysis, with time, as the kidneys recover from this injury, there is enough blood flow and enough kidney reserve to get a person back off dialysis, but that may not be the case,” says Dr. Bernard.

Ty had the aortic tear surgically treated with a graft to prevent a worsening of the dissection.

“This hospital saved my life,” says Ty, who later received a kidney transplant in Vancouver. “I am so thankful and grateful for all the doctors and nurses that came together to help me, revive me, and get me back to where I am today.”

Young man with high blood pressure suffers aortic dissection

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Pain signals Royal Columbian neurosurgeon provides the relief Surrey resident desperately needed Mike Wilkinson thought the sharp pain was a toothache, but it turned out to be something much more debilitating. For close to two years, the facial pain would come and go, seemingly lasting longer and getting more intense each time. The Surrey resident was eventually diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia – sometimes called ‘the suicide disease’ because of the agony it causes. It became so bad that Mike was on the verge of spending six figures for treatment in the U.S., before he was fortunately referred to a neurosurgeon at Royal Columbian Hospital.

“If it had kept going at that intensity I probably would have banged my head against the wall to try and stop it,” says Mike about his condition, which was diagnosed following an MRI. As the pain flared up repeatedly between 2015 and 2017, Mike desperately sought a solution.

Medications were not working, and the number of surgeons with the training to treat it was low. Eventually, Mike discovered Royal Columbian neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Nikolakis.

“The cause is often a blood vessel compressing the trigeminal nerve as it

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Mike Wilkinson found relief at Royal Columbian Hospital for a debilitating nerve disorder.

comes out of the brain stem,” explains Dr. Nikolakis. “Some patients literally will stop eating, because eating or opening their mouth will cause an exacerbation, or they won’t speak for days or weeks at a time.”

Mike is familiar with this. “I used to lie in bed in the morning and the only thing I could get down me was porridge,” he recalls. “I would take a spoon and as soon as I got it near my mouth it would set it off. I would wait half a minute before I would get myself pumped up to have the next mouthful, it was just so intense.”

Just before he met Dr. Nikolakis, Mike had made plans to have surgery south of the border, preparing to pay more than $100,000 for help. He quickly canceled after speaking with the Royal Columbian neurosurgeon.

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Dr. Nikolakis’s solution involves a rhizotomy, which is a minimallyinvasive procedure to disrupt the nerve’s ability to send pain signals to the brain. Mike says he was able to go home the same day.

“They put a little pin prick in your cheek and that was it,” he says. “All I have is this tingling sensation on the left side of my face, but I can live with that.”

It is not a permanent solution, but Dr. Nikolakis says the relief should last several years. If the pain returns, the patient can undergo the procedure again.

Mike is grateful to have finally found relief, and he thinks highly of Dr. Nikolakis.

“Just a delight to talk to, and he explains everything.”

Foresight and wisdom During his time on the Foundation’s Board of Directors, David McDonald founded the annual Chairman’s Circle Healthy Living Series and was part of the leadership that purchased land in the 1990s that is now home to the new Mental Health and Substance Use Wellness Centre.

Along with the Royal Columbian Hospital Auxiliary, David was recently named an inaugural member of the Foundation’s 1862 Council to honour his significant contributions.

Foundation: You joined the foundation board back in the 80s. Did you have a strong connection with the hospital?

D: I grew up in New Westminster. I went to school in New Westminster. I lived in New Westminster before I moved to Vancouver. And all my doctors are out this way, really. The hospital has really grown since, particularly with the addition of this mental health centre, which is great. We have been working on this expansion for years and years. It’s nice to see it actually happened.

Foundation: You helped introduce the foundation to a number of people, including through the creation of the Chairman’s Circle. How did the idea come about?

D: We had a home in the Napa Valley, where the St Helena Hospital had… they didn’t call it Chairman’s Circle, but it was doing the same thing, and it was getting people from the community. So we started ours and have had some fabulous speakers over the years. Everyone was more than willing to help. The other thing that helped us a lot too, a lot of the doctors joined Chairman’s Circle. I was always able to say the doctors were involved in a big, big way. That really helped.

Foundation: Do you occasionally reflect on the number of donations and the equipment that are linked to the work you have done?

D: People have had a tremendous impact on the hospital through their generosity. As I used to say when I invited donors to join the Chairman’s Circle, you want the hospital to have the latest and greatest when you need medical care. So it’s very important that we have new equipment.

Foundation: What would you like people to know and remember about your legacy to the hospital?

D: Royal Columbian and its people do incredible work, and it’s gratifying to have a role in supporting the care that’s available here. I volunteered alongside many other great people, and many others have been doing the same since my term on the board ended. We want to keep this hospital as a first-class facility so when it’s our time to use it, everything is here that we possibly would need.

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