The three greatest needs for this year’s LRHF Gala have been identified.
The funds raised from Friday’s festivities are to support the purchase of a Phillips Rover with Capnography, bariatric beds and 96-hour Holter monitors for the Lloydminster Hospital.
The 21st Lloydminster Region Health Foundation Gala is themed A Night In Wonderland and is being held on April 28 at the WLS Convention Centre with cocktails from 5:30 p.m.
Capnography is used to monitor a patient’s carbon dioxide levels to get a measure of their ventilation. The device can be used for all ages including children.
A bariatric bed is an extra-large hospital bed with enhanced weight capacity that’s useful for patients especially in long-term care.
CEO Stephanie Munro says increasing the number of bariatric beds will allow the hospital to keep more long-term care patients in this community.
“Oftentimes there are bariatric patients that if we don’t have adequate resources within our community for them – our acute care centres or our long-term care centres, some of those bariatric patients have to go elsewhere. So it’s allowing us to be able to keep these individuals closer to home.”
A Holter monitor is a small device that can be worn to detect an irregular heartbeat especially for patients whom a traditional electrocardiogram or ECG test does not bring back all the details.
Munro says the units they are getting will allow patients to be monitored for 96-hours as opposed to what the hospital presently has, which is mostly 24 to 48-hours and there is a two-week wait time to get a monitor. Also, a doctor may require a longer monitoring period to observe the patient.
“So, currently to receive 72 to 96-hour Holter monitors, you would go to either Saskatoon, Edmonton or North Battleford to get one of those. We do have a couple in Lloydminster, but we don’t have enough. So, in order to keep our patients closer to home, we need to increase the number of 96-hour Holter monitors that we have.”
This year’s event has been sold out for a few weeks now and event planners are expressing gratitude for all the community and corporate support.
Overall, raising funds for the greatest needs allows them to have dollars on hand to help out at those critical times, concludes Munro.