We are so grateful for your contributions. Every donation helps to provide excellence in healthcare close to home.

• With the increased numbers through our Emergency Department doors our ER team is grateful for the advances in new equipment made possible by your donations.
• New equipment purchased with donor dollars for our Surgical Department will ensure that all three operating rooms will run even more effectively.
• Our hospital relies on community physicians to staff the Emergency and Acute Care departments. Thanks to your help, we can continue to support the Doctor of the Day program, ensuring the best possible care in our hospital.

Thank you for your generosity in 2022!

If you have ever sprained, fractured or broken a limb, or ended up with pneumonia after a bout of influenza, you know that an X-ray is one of the most important diagnostic tools in our healthcare system. Once renovations and installation is complete in early 2023, patients requiring an X-ray at Saanich Peninsula Hospital will benefit from the new equipment!

In addition to the new X-ray machine, you helped us purchase:

• A chemistry analyzer
• An automated slide reader for the Lab
• An ECG cart and a CASE™ Exercise Testing System for the Non-invasive Cardiac Lab
• An ultrasound specifically designed for echocardiography
• Cardiac monitors for the Emergency Department
• A Stryker OR table for the Operating Room
• A flexible endoscopic examination system for Speech Therapy
• A disinfecting washer for Acute Care

Donor support makes all the difference! Your donations help us to ensure that our community has the tools to support your health and that of your family. Thank you for your generosity in 2021!

COVID-19 was scary for everyone, but there was comfort in knowing that our hospital is robust and always there for us. During the pandemic doctors and staff went above and beyond to care for us, and we were so proud of the innovation and creativity they displayed.

Looking forward, we knew that we needed to be better prepared, to deal with the repercussions of Covid-19, and be prepared for any new health emergency. Our campaign would raise funds to complete important projects at the Saanich Peninsula Hospital, to ensure that we are ready for whatever comes next.

What we achieved:

• New equipment to support the three Operating Rooms
• Additional sterilizing equipment to support the increase in instrument cleaning
• Renovations to create overflow space for admitted patients to ensure social distancing and safety during flu season and potential second wave of pandemic
• Replacement of key Operating Room equipment to support catch-up of orthopaedic, gynaecological, and dental surgeries
• New equipment to support surgeries new to SPH, such as medically necessary plastic surgeries

Your caring gift to the Emergency Response Fund provided a rapid response to emerging needs from our dedicated healthcare workers and patients. We had no budget to cover this pandemic, but your support of the Emergency Response Fund:

• Supported the hospital in its response to this emergency;
• Championed high-quality care for our patients and community;
• Ensured that our patients received both the material and emotional support they needed;
• Helped with safe working practices and materials in our hospital;
• Prepared in case there is a second wave of COVID-19

The public health crisis changed our lives dramatically, upending our community emotionally, medically, logistically and financially. Your Saanich Peninsula Hospital was truly on the front lines of delivery services at this critical time. The health and safety of our hospital staff, patients and community was our highest priority.

What your donations achieved

You made miracles happen, right here on the Peninsula. So far, your donations provided:

• A hand held ultrasound with an iPad and plastic case for The Emergency Room that allows doctors to easily sanitize and is custom-designed to help diagnose Covid-19;
• Funding for temporary housing for clinic staff who must to self isolate;
• An emergency supply of protective masks and hand sanitizer;
• 9 computer tablets for Long-term Care and Acute Care in order to facilitate “Virtual Visitations”;
• “Cinch” bags for 600+ hospital workers’ scrubs;
• Water bottles for the hospital healthcare workers;
• 9 fold-up beds for Mount Newton Seniors Centre to use for those who may need to borrow it when taking care of their elders;
• 2 change tents for healthcare workers in Long-term Care;
• Waterproof cases for the computer tablets for “virtual visits” to keep them clean;
• 300 spray bottles to dispense the hand sanitizer that local businesses donated;
• Equipment to allow for in-house exercise therapies and other similar video capabilities for our Long-term Care residents;
• Purchase TVs, DVD players and carts to encourage residents in Long-term Care to exercise and stay connected to the outside world;
• Plastic room dividers so families can have a little more privacy during their “window visits” with loved ones in Palliative Care;
• Face shields for frontline workers like the doctors and MOAs at Shoreline Medical Society;
• Built a platform outside the main window of Long-term Care so that families are more comfortable window-visiting loved ones (and don’t have to balance on rocks!);
• Special carts for supplies and a TV and DVD player with cable for some entertainment for those new patients who must self-isolate.
• Funding to support an increase in hours for the therapist who is working so hard to facilitate window and virtual visits.
• Treats to say thanks to those who work so hard keeping us safe.
• A thank you banner outside the hospital that says “Heroes work here”

Staff at the Saanich Peninsula Hospital Long-term Care work tirelessly to give the best possible experiences, and care, to residents – you can help too by providing resources that will keep residents comfortable, active, engaged and supported during their time at the hospital. These residents are the people who raised us, taught us, and took care of our safety. Now it is time to take care of them.
In 2019 it was our goal to raise $2 million for needed upgrades and therapy tools for the SPH Long-term Care. Funds raised were used for:

• Beds, bedside tables and over-bed tables
• Therapy Programs that enhance residents’ lives like horticulture/music/art therapy
• Equipment to keep brains active like the Bike Around with Google Street View, and Tovertafel (Magic Table)
• Updates and creation of more intimate spaces in the dining room
• Enhancements to the Memory Garden including a greenhouse for year-round therapy, a water fountain, a craft table, a vintage car and garden chairs

Your help ensured residents at SPH’s Long-term Care remained active, engaged and comfortable.

John, 77

Sitting with John it’s impossible not to find yourself smiling, his zest for life is infectious. Ask about some of the adventures he got up to driving trucks up and down the Island and a huge smile comes over his face. John took those driving skills and put them to good use not just at the Sidney and North Saanich fire departments, but also as a volunteer bus driver for Resthaven Lodge. Having suffered a stroke John now calls the Saanich Peninsula Hospital home, but he’s still a part of the same community he grew up in, lived, and worked in, with kids and grandnephews nearby. The stroke has limited John physically, but he is still as keen as ever to participate in life.

The shortage of physicians has been a key problem for SPH, but the problem is bigger than our wonderful hospital. Its impact is felt throughout the community, within our families and in local businesses as they try to recruit staff. Access to health care is a critical part of building a livable community.

This campaign was the culmination of years of hard work and community engagement.

Donors identified physician shortages as the greatest healthcare problem faced in our community. Because it also affected our hospital, the Foundation wanted to be part of the solution. We answered the need for hospital physicians. We worked with a visionary donor and as a result of this campaign, we implemented a two year experiment that brought doctors back to hospital service through providing a small payment over and above their billings. The experiment also supported bringing new physician recruits to practice on the peninsula.

The year was one of profound change for the Foundation. We regularly had been receiving calls from members of the community who were desperate to find a doctor. And we realized that we needed to help, not just for the health of the community, but for the future of the hospital. With the hospital having a rural-based practice model, a physician shortage in the community meant a physician shortage at SPH.

First, we changed our name to the Saanich Peninsula Hospital & Healthcare Foundation. Second, we built a partnership with the Shoreline Medical Society, also a charity that has developed a new model of care and a primary healthcare network, working to have a network of three sites on the peninsula under the name of “Shoreline Medical”.

The goal? To raise $2 million for the partnership with the Shoreline Medical Society  for renovations, equipment purchase and other start-up costs associated with both Shoreline Medical current locations in Sidney and Brentwood, plus locate a third clinic for the network at or near the Saanich Peninsula Hospital. Thank you to everyone who helped us reach this goal!

Together we were able to reach our goal of $2 million to support important modernizations of our hospital. Our hospital is at the heart of our community, and it’s a facility that all residents can rely on.

We focused on the Palliative Care Unit as it needed refurbishing; it had been 14 years since the unit was created and it’s a much-respected part of the hospital. Thanks to you, we “refreshed” the area by replacing some aging furnishings and equipment.

Through the support of our generous donors, we were able to give almost $500,000 towards the purchase of a new echocardiogram machine and the new computerized medication cabinet for ER. The computerized medication cabinet for the Emergency Room helps ensure that in a busy ER, medications stay secure and available.

Many donors had noticed that nothing had changed in the outpatient Lab for 20 years or more. Planning began to modernize it, and in the process, create space for the new echocardiogram machine.

We also completed the renovation of the two “tub” rooms in Residential Care and purchased some beds and other small equipment. We continued design work on the “memory” garden so that residents with dementia would have an additional, important activity to reduce stress (and in many cases, reduce the need for medication).

Your donations don’t just build facilities and buy equipment, they change lives. That’s why we, along with help from the Saanich Peninsula Hospital Auxiliary, replaced the bus for Extended Care residents. This now gives them access to programs available to them in the community at Panorama Recreation Centre and McTavish Academy of Art.

In 2016 your generous donations helped support new art, music and horticulture therapy programs, revitalize the Extended Care Unit’s Library, and provide personalized equipment for each resident to continue enjoying the passions they love. We purchased new instruments for the music therapy program, and dolls and robotic cats for the Love and Comfort therapy program.

Thanks to you, the residents feel more at home, with better walkways and equipment to help with mobility and family stays. We were able to refurbish the family visiting room, replaced many worn-out pieces of equipment in Extended Care and completed the renovation of two Palliative Care rooms. Many donors were able to see these beautiful changes to the “Rose Ruse” Room (named for the founding President of the Auxiliary to SPH) at our annual donor tea. The “Garden” Room also neared completion in 2017 and today is now equally beautiful, with a little patio onto which a hospital bed can be wheeled, so that even at the end of life, nature can be enjoyed.

For small hospitals like ours, day surgery is key to acute care treatment. That’s why in 2015-16 together we raised $2 million for a much-needed larger, custom-designed space to accommodate the 1,500 surgical procedures and 780 medical procedures that are routinely undertaken each year at our hospital. Roughly 2,280 patients go through surgical daycare every year at SPH.

We took the current three rooms and built one dedicated, state-of-the-art Day Surgery Unit that includes a waiting room, storage and a medication room overseen by a leading-edge nursing station with space for computers and other modern management tools.

Together we reached our $3 million fundraising goal for the design and construction of a state-of-the-art Sterilization Department to accompany our newly constructed Operating Rooms!  This keeps our hospital functioning within the most advanced levels of Infection Control; raising our standards to twenty-first century requirements. It took a few years for completion of this project and in June of 2018, donors had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take a tour of our hospital’s new Sterilization Unit (or Medical Device Reprocessing Department, its formal name).

But wait there’s more…. Did you know…

In 2012 donors provided $5.2 million of the cost to construct, complete and equip three new state-of-the-art operating rooms. In 2014, donors contributed to the renovations of the old operating rooms to create the Trevor Deeley pre-and post-op area. And in 2018, together we completed the Hat Trick with the completion of the MDRD. The MDRD has the most modern equipment and facilities to serve our SPH operating rooms.