Approximately $43,000 was raised for a 12-bed high acuity unit at the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital as part of this year's Mid Island Co-op Fuel Good Day.
Fuel Good Day, on Sept. 17, is an annual fundraiser at which co-ops across the country donate at least five cents a litre to a local community organization.
At the Mid Island Co-op, which operates 16 gas bars throughout the central Vancouver Island region, the Nanaimo and District Hospital Foundation was selected to receive 10 cents on every litre throughout the day.
Chosen for the third year, NDHF CEO Barney Ellis-Perry said all the money raised during this year's Fuel Good Day will be put into NRGH to finalize the foundation's high-acuity unit campaign.
"The critical care unit at NRGH is made up of the intensive-care unit and the high-acuity unit and together they form a complete intensive-care unit," said Tony Harris, NDHF chairperson.
He added that the Nanaimo and District Hospital Foundation has raised $5 million for the intensive-care unit, and now another $5 million for the high-acuity unit.
Ellis-Perry described the high acuity unit as a "step-down unit" from the ICU.
"As they stabilize and get better they come down to the high-acuity unit where there is two patients to one nurse and have their own bathroom or shower, etc.," he said.
Currently the NRGH's high-acuity unit is eight temporary beds in the back section of hospital's emergency department. Once the new 12-bed permanent high-acuity unit is completed next summer, it will open up space in the hospital that Ellis-Perry said may be converted into an emergency section for seniors.
"It would allow seniors to have their own more controlled space," he said. "Research on dementia being triggered by seniors coming into an emergency or into a hospital is really quite scary. It's about a five per cent decline a day because of the bright lights, the noises, the lack of sleep and all that. So if we have a separate seniors' emerg where they can present there, be accessed there and have more specialists around geriatric care, and lights would be lower and controlled at night – things like that."
Ellis-Perry said he believes the boost is from additional activities associated with the Fuel Good Day helped boost the total, including the purchase of 'Fuel Good Squares' notes for donors to write positive messages.
"We've partnered with [NRGH] because they are the tertiary care facility for all of Vancouver Island north of the Malahat so when people are really sick, this is where they end up," said Mid Island Co-op CEO Ian Anderson. "It's really important, because it does serve all the different locations that we do business in from Lake Cowichan and Salt Spring Island all the way to Port Hardy."
