Learn how you can support excellence and innovation in healthcare for all New Brunswickers. sjrhf.ca
1
Fundraising for excellence & innovation in your healthcare The Saint John Regional Hospital Foundation raises funds to support leading-edge technology and research at the Saint John Regional Hospital, the largest healthcare centre in the province – providing world-class care for all New Brunswickers. Since 1980, the Foundation has raised more than $75 million, thanks to the generosity of more than 50,000 donors.
34 years $75 million 50,000 donors Between April 2013 and March 2014, thanks to the support of our generous donors, we allocated more than $4.8 million to dozens of programs and equipment purchases to improve the quality of healthcare in Saint John, for the benefit of all New Brunswickers. Some of our investment highlights from the last year include: • Hospital and laboratory equipment (see page 2 to read about 2013’s The Give for neurosurgery) • Scholarships to nearly 30 medical students (see page 5 to read about the NB Medical Education Trust) • Intensive Care Unit equipment • Patient comfort items for palliative care • NB Heart Centre and cardiac health and wellness (see page 4 to read about the NB Heart Centre) • Funding for community mental health programs (see page 3 to read about MindCare NB)
Supporting all aspects of local healthcare When you donate to the Saint John Regional Hospital Foundation, your money stays here in New Brunswick – and is directed to the area of healthcare that is most important to you.
Capital Equipment Mental Wellness Research Education Patient Comfort
2
Cutting-edge surgeries, here at home Dr. George Kolyvas has been a neurosurgeon at the Saint John Regional Hospital for 18 years. He’s seen the hospital come a long way over the past two decades. “When I first started, our neurosurgical department was providing service care only,” he said. “We’re now involved in academic projects, teaching residents, the medical school and research as well.” The calibre of procedures the hospital’s neurosurgical team can complete has also increased dramatically in recent years. One of the key factors was the acquisition of $850,000 in new equipment through the Saint John Regional Hospital Foundation’s 2013 The Give campaign. Surgeries that used to require incisions the size of tea saucers in patients’ skulls now involve much smaller – and safer – procedures. “The focus was to purchase operative equipment to allow us to move toward minimally invasive brain surgery,” Dr. Kolyvas said. “We’re now able to get at lesions in the brain through keyhole-sized holes. The advantages of small openings are numerous: quicker in-and-out access, less anesthetic, less time in the operating room, less trauma to the brain and shorter length of stay in the hospital. All of these are for the well-being of the patient and decrease the chance of complications.” Dr. Kolyvas says advancements in neurosurgery are happening all the time. To provide patients with the best care possible, a hospital must always look to improve its equipment and the skills of its doctors and nurses. “If we stop progressing, or if we stagnate, we’re actually moving backward,” he said. “Because everyone else is moving forward.”
“For a province our size, we’re doing very well. Even if comparing ourselves regionally, we are in excellent shape,” he said. “The Foundation plays a very important role in that. They’re key in allowing us to advance with new technology. They’ve accepted a number of our proposals over the years, and The Give was instrumental in helping us go beyond the scope of government funding. In the end, we’re all trying to help the people of NB, the public, our patients.” Having the most advanced technology available to our physicians and nurses also helps ensure that the world’s top medical talent decides to practise here at home. While it’s easy to focus on the quality of technology and equipment available to the hospital, Dr. Kolyvas says it’s critical to keep perspective on what’s most important: caring for patients.
“We’re looking to advance our skills, knowledge and equipment, but it always comes back to the patient. What we’re proposing and spending money on will help improve patient care. It will help patients through the most difficult treatments they will ever face, and in many cases, it will save lives. In the end, we’re all trying to help the people of NB, the public, our patients. And the Foundation plays a huge role in that.”
To learn more, visit thegive.ca.
The Foundation’s contributions have been crucial to helping the neurosurgery department at the Saint John Regional Hospital operate at a world-class level, Dr. Kolyvas says.
What we’ve been able to Give so far:
2010 2011 2012 2013
ER Trauma - $775,000 Stem Cell - $700,000 NB Heart Centre - $775,000 Neurosurgery - $850,000
Dr. George Kolyvas
3
Healthy minds, healthy lives Next time you walk through our hospital’s main lobby, look left to the table where our Foundation volunteers are busy selling wooden roses.
Nanny says before getting involved with the Foundation, she didn’t realize just how much it did to support local healthcare. For her, it’s all about giving back to those who tried to help her husband.
Chances are one of those volunteers is Sheila Levesque – or as her friends and family know her, Nanny.
“My husband died here and all eight of my grandkids were born here. This hospital is very special to me,” she said. “A friend of mine once said, ‘Grief can make you bitter or better’ – and I chose better.”
Nanny began volunteering in 2004 after her husband lost a four-year battle with cancer. A decade later, she now averages about five days of volunteer time each week.
Over the past couple of years, she’s been involved in lots of direct fundraising efforts – her motto is, “One cookie at a time, one rose at a time, one ticket at a time.”
Nanny has helped run a variety of our programs – but she says if she had to choose the one nearest to her heart, it would be MindCare. A mother of five and a grandmother of eight, she says MindCare’s connection to mental health issues among youth hits home.
When she was asked to start selling the wooden roses in the hospital lobby, she wasn’t sure it would take off. But as it turns out, she’s a natural at sales. Since 2012, sales have reached $70,000, including $40,000 in 2013.
“A lot of young people just need someone to talk to – someone who’s not connected to them and who won’t enable them,” she said.
“Everyone has something to give back. It gives that day a purpose,” she said. “And if we make the lives of our patients and doctors easier, that’s what it’s all about.”
“The organizations we help do just that, and one of the key ways they get funding to do their jobs is through MindCare.”
To learn more about MindCare New Brunswick, visit sjrhf.ca
Estimated annual allocations to mental wellness $15,000
Scholarships for students with plans to pursue careers in mental health services
$18,000
Research projects to advance mental health services in NB
$120,000
Mental health programming in our community
$33,000 Sheila “Nanny” Levesque, SJRHF volunteer
Building community alliances
$150,000
Transformational projects and research
4
A world-class heart centre here in New Brunswick Last fall, my dad fell from a ladder, fracturing his pelvis and lacerating his liver. But these were relatively minor injuries compared to what the ICU found when they did extensive testing to find out what had caused him to black out and fall in the first place.
They were even able to inspect his surgical incisions via webcam and check for signs of infection. As dad’s sole caregiver, these daily video calls were very comforting – they allowed me to ask questions and confirm that everything was moving along as it was supposed to.
They discovered that Dad had three nearly completely obstructed arteries, and that he needed emergency triple bypass surgery. He was transferred from the ICU to the Cardiac Care Unit, where he spent about a week getting ready for the procedure.
We’d like to say a big thank you to everyone at the Saint John Regional Hospital.
—Mike Bacon, son of NB Heart Centre patient.
The experience in the Cardiac Care unit was incredible. I can only describe it as a community of care – from the doctors and staff, to the support we received from other patients. Just four days after his surgery, Dad was released from the hospital. He came home with a machine from the Telehealth program, which allowed me to take his vitals each morning and upload them for a nurse at the Cardiac Care Unit, who could then review them and talk to us via video conference and track his progress.
To learn more about the New Brunswick Heart Centre, visit sjrhf.ca
5,000+ procedures for 3,750+ patients, 735 of which were cardiac surgeries Continued research into heart failure, metabolic cardiac disease, gene therapy, cell therapy and nanomedicine
Our Heart Centre in 2013:
40% of patients are less than 70 years old, 75% are male
Average length of stay = 2.5 days
Mike Bacon, Son of NB Heart Centre patient
5
Investing in New Brunswick healthcare. And our youth. To maintain a strong healthcare system, we need to keep the world’s top medical talent here in New Brunswick. You can help by supporting the New Brunswick Medical Education Trust, which provides young New Brunswickers with medical school scholarships. Our winners may study at the university of their choice, but after graduation, they will return and practise in New Brunswick. We’re investing in the future of healthcare in New Brunswick – one doctor at a time.
Supporting future doctors from across the province Saint John / Quispamsis (13)
Kiersteadville (1)
St. Andrews / St. Stephen (2)
Rang-Saint-Georges / Dunlop / Tracadie-Sheila (3)
Fredericton / New Maryland (6) Jacksontown (1)
3
Moncton / Shediac (4)
These 31 scholarship recipients will attend universities across Canada and beyond, including Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick in Saint John, Memorial University, Université de Sherbrooke – Moncton Campus, Université Laval, University of Montreal, University of Ottawa and Saba University in the Caribbean. .
1 1
6 4 1 2
Miramichi (1)
13
The NB Medical Education Trust does more than just help New Brunswickers pay for med school. It sends an important message to future physicians. New Brunswickers want them to practise here at home, and are willing to help make that happen. The NB Medical Education Trust helps recruit physicians from the very beginning of their careers.
For more information, or to donate, please visit sjrhf.ca or call (506) 648-6400.
Corey Stevens, Past scholarship recipient
6
In case of emergency, rely on world-class research The ER. It’s a place no one wants to visit, but at some point in our lives, practically each of us will. Luckily, there are highly trained specialists tasked with finding ways to keep our emergency departments running as efficiently and effectively as possible, all while maintaining a focus on people. Dr. Paul Atkinson is one of those people. He is the Research Director at the Saint John Regional Hospital’s Department of Emergency Medicine. During his tenure at the hospital, the department has made some significant advances in its work – including the publication of more than 20 peer-reviewed articles and recognition through a handful of national and international research awards. But while the research is important, Dr. Atkinson says it’s even more important to ensure the research links back to improvements in clinical care – inside the ER itself. “We’ve been able to show that research is relevant to the care our doctors and nurses provide. It really can improve the way they treat patients,” he said. “It doesn’t happen instantly, but we’re also not talking 20 years down the road. Real change can happen in just two or three years.”
One way they’ve managed to continue their work has been through funding from the Saint John Regional Hospital Foundation. The Foundation recently donated funds to cover half the salary of Research Coordinator, Jackie Fraser, for two years. “Without that contribution, we wouldn’t have been able to get off the ground,” Dr. Atkinson said. “The Foundation was pivotal to getting this program going, and it will be pivotal to keeping it going in the future.” The Foundation has also funded the acquisition of new simulation equipment for the emergency department, which one team member used to win another national research award. Dr. Atkinson says that when someone donates to research through the Foundation, that funding supports projects that improve the skillset of physicians working in the hospital’s ER, treating that very donor’s neighbours, friends, even family.
“Everyone uses the ER at some point in their life, and we’re here to make sure people get the best, most efficient and high quality care possible, every single visit. The Foundation was pivotal to getting this program going, and it will be pivotal to keeping it going in the future.”
One of Dr. Atkinson’s recent projects – which he co-authored with Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick student, James Milne – won a national award, putting the research team on the radar of the best emergency medicine researchers on the planet. “I’ve been invited to Harvard in September to present our study and to consider expanding the study, and we’ve also had some interest from the Royal London Hospital.” Meanwhile, a difficult reality Dr. Atkinson and his research team faces is the constant search for funding to support their work. “Some of our major funding sources have dried up in recent years, so our work is threatened by budget cuts,” he said.
Dr. Paul Atkinson
Thank you! To donate, visit sjrhf.ca.
I wish to make a donation in the amount of: $35
$50
$75
$100
Cheque enclosed Other : ________________ Name:
Each month, I want to give the amount of:
Address:
$5 $10 $15 $20 Other: _________ per month
Telephone: Email: Visa Card #: Expiry date: Signature:
Monthly Giving Plan: Our pre-authorized monthly giving plan is convenient and will save you time, postage and bank fees. It is an easy way to spread your caring throughout the entire year! You can alter the amount of your gift or end this service at any time by contacting us.
Mastercard
AMEX
I authorize Saint John Regional Hospital Foundation to charge this donation to my credit card on the 15th day of each month. Please make cheques payable to: SJRH Foundation 400 University Avenue P.O. Box 2100 Saint John, New Brunswick, E2L 4L2 Tel: (506) 648-6400 Fax: (506) 648-6002 Donate online: sjrhf.ca Business Number (BN) 11913 2363 RR0001 unGENfa