Since 1985, the Saanich Peninsula Hospital & Healthcare Foundation has helped fundraise for a variety of different hospital equipment.
“We also raise funds for community primary care, access to physicians and have partnered with Shoreline Medical in the continuance of primary care access for this community,” says foundation president Sarah Bragg.
Throughout the years the community on the peninsula has supported the needs of the foundation and staff at the facility.
“We are blessed with a generous, giving and caring community that over many years has provided state of the art equipment at this hospital,” says Bragg.
This year the foundation is looking to raise $2 million to cover the cost of a new Siemens X-ray machine.
“This machine has kind of reached its end of life and we’re moving forward, we have state of the art equipment in other areas of the hospital,” says medical imaging site supervisor Kim Loucks. “So this is the last piece of the puzzle to bring this hospital back up to where it needs to be as far as imaging goes.”
“The main thing from my point of view is trying to improve image quality and minimize variability between scans,” says diagnostic radiologist Dr. David Thomas.
“So there’s lots of important reasons that we kind of need to kind of get this machine up to the level of some of the other equipment in the hospital.”
It’s a piece of equipment that will serve the entire community.
“I don’t think there’s a family or an individual that lives on the peninsula that at some point has not needed an X-ray,” says Bragg.
“It’s something that is not just used for broken bones, there are applications in every department of this hospital.”
“We do over 20,000 X-rays a year at Saanich Peninsula Hospital,” says Loucks.
“It’s a very very highly utilized piece of equipment and it is beyond broken bones.”
To find out more about the machine and how you can donate, visit the Saanich Peninsula Hospital and Healthcare Foundation website.
Cole Sorenson
