Hearts for Healthcare Vital for Cold Lake Hospital

Not for Profit helps secure funds for equipment and doctor recruitment program.

Hearts for Healthcare is an important part of helping maintain quality service and care at the Cold Lake Health Centre. Annually the group contributes hundreds of thousands of dollars to the hospital to help purchase state-of-the-art equipment. As well as, help run a very attractive and competitive doctor recruitment program.

“It’s important for people to understand that Hearts for Healthcare is made up of a group of volunteers. There is one paid employee, but the rest are volunteers,” site manager of the Cold Lake Health Centre, Cathy Garon, says it’s thanks to the volunteers’ year-round efforts that keep Hearts for Healthcare operating. “It’s volunteers that put in hundreds of hours, all year round, that help pull everything together. The gala is their biggest promotion, but they do things year round.”

Physician Recruitment Program

“Our biggest accomplishment is our physician recruitment program; which brings doctors to our community,” Executive Director for Hearts for Healthcare, Theresa Nichol says the program is very competitive to other communities and offers a variety of incentives for doctors wanting to come to Cold Lake to set up a practice. Including a loan program, that is set up through the Lakeland Credit Union.

“The best thing we can do is to stay competitive. So we offer a $20,000 incentive program for any doctors wanting to come to Cold Lake,” explains Nichol. Many people do not realize a lot of doctors come from other countries; they do not have a credit score and some do not have citizenship. Making it very hard to take out a loan to purchase a home or to even rent an apartment. They cannot set up a practice or move their spouses or children to the community without the help of a doctor recruitment program. Hearts for Healthcare helps secure a loan for the doctors ensuring they have a place to live.

Another element the public may not be aware of is that when a doctor first comes to the community he/she must work unpaid for a three-month evaluation period; making it even harder on the physician to get set up in the community. The doctor recruitment program is vital in ensuring doctors are able to practice medicine and live in Cold Lake.

Equipment Program

“Our other biggest accomplishment is the equipment we are able to purchase,” over the years Hearts for Healthcare has purchased a number of essential and state-of-the-art equipment for the hospital, says Nichol. “It always goes through Alberta Health Services (AHS) and AHS just doesn’t have the funds for all the hospitals. It becomes the community’s responsibility to try and improve healthcare.”

Garon adds, “one of the most common questions I get is, ‘why doesn’t AHS buy all of the equipment that you need?’. The reality is, they do have a lot of money, but they have 140 or 150 hospitals and every hospital has 10 or 20 departments and every department is asking for what they want.” Garon explains it adds up and there simply isn’t enough money to fill every hospitals wants and needs. “Generally, the whole organization is getting older and all of the equipment is getting older and wearing out at the same time. Some have a higher priority, than others.”

AHS has invested quite a lot into the Cold Lake hospital’s infrastructure, explains Garon, “they have spend $450,000 developing a new endoscopy suite. A million dollars on the helicopter pad, $800,000 on air conditioner and heating systems and another $1.2 million on our new fire and surveillance systems.”

Hearts for Healthcare picks up where AHS leaves, says Garon, “what Hearts for Healthcare does for us is, they purchase the things that make doctors’ and nurses’ lives easier and makes patient monitoring and observation better. It takes us to the next level.” Hearts for Healthcare will purchase equipment that the health centre really wants, but could get away without having or if a piece of equipment is standard and is getting old, Hearts for Healthcare may purchase a new one to replace it.

Some items Hearts for Healthcare has purchased for the hospital include; equipment for two complete labour & delivery rooms, panda warmers (incubators), surgery cauterize machines, orthopedic tray sets, central cardiac monitors for the emergency room & acute care and cataract surgery sets.

“In order to grow our programs, in Cold Lake, and bring specialists here, we have to have newest, latest equipment,” Garon says there’s a lot of factors that go into attracting physicians and having standard equipment is just one of the elements that helps bring doctors to the city.

Additional Programs

Hearts for Healthcare organizes Nurses week and the Nurse of Year Program. The organization hosts Healthcare in Excellence Program. Along with the awards programs, Hearts for Hospital also does check-ins on new physicians. A representative will stop by and make sure the doctor and his/her family is adjusting well in the community and make sure their needs are met.

Fundraising efforts

There are a number of fundraising efforts Hearts for Healthcare puts on; including an annual promotion through Shopper’s Drug Mart. The main fundraiser for the organization is the annual gala, Hearts for Hospital, “the money comes directly to the healthcare centre. Either in equipment that we need and ask for or for recruiting physicians.”

The gala is May 6th at the Energy Centre. Tickets are $100, can be purchased individually or as a table of 8. To purchase, contact Theresa at 780-812-1312.