The fundraising efforts of the Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation recently got a boost in the form of a $30,000 donation from the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation of Canada's Burnaby team.
Work is already underway for the $5.3million multi-purpose interventional suite, which will increase the New Westminster hospital's capacity to care for cardiac, stroke and aneurysm patients by about 1,400 people per year. The foundation has pledged to provide $2.8 million towards the project, with an eye of reaching that goal by spring. The fund got a boost in the summer with a $1 million donation from a donor who wished to remain anonymous.
Royal Columbian provides one-third of all minimally invasive heart procedures in B.C. However, the hospital can't keep up with the increasing demand for specialized cardiac services and often must refer patients for care outside of the region.
"Tzu Chi Foundation Burnaby team decided to donate to RCH when they realized that the hospital might be the busiest one in Fraser Health and doesn't have the capacity to respond to the growing demand in critical health care," said Tzu Chi Foundation volunteer Mei Luen Kuo.
"Cardiac, stroke and aneurysm patients are going to get the specialized care they need closer to home thanks to the generous contributions of RCH Foundation's donors in partnership with Fraser Health," says foundation president Adrienne Bakker. "Grateful patients, corporate and community leaders are donating to this campaign because they recognize their support can help transform cardiovascular disease from something that is deadly into something that is treatable."
RCH is a provincial and regional referral hospital providing specialized care for trauma, cardiac services, neurosciences, high-risk maternity and neonatal intensive care for 1.6 million seriously ill and injured people from Fraser Health, the Lower Mainland and across the province. RCH is also a provincial teaching hospital with a UBC clinical academic campus onsite.
