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Prairie North leading fundraiser campaign for new hospital

Mar 28, 2017 | 4:52 PM

A local group working on a province-wide fundraising campaign for the new Saskatchewan Hospital is making some headway in reaching an $8-million goal, after already raising $1.2 million with a big boost from an anonymous donor in Southern Saskatchewan.

Funds raised in the Saskatchewan Hospital New Beginnings campaign will be used to purchase new equipment and furniture for the new Saskatchewan Hospital North Battleford facility, a provincial psychiatric facility that is currently under construction. It is expected to be completed in June 2018.

“We’re fortunate that Saskatchewan Hospital is a provincial hospital so our campaign focuses on the entire province,” the campaign’s fundraising lead Corinne Bernier Delainey said.

Prairie North Health Region is leading the Saskatchewan Hospital New Beginnings fundraising campaign.

The century-old existing hospital is still operating and will remain open until the new facility is completed and all patients have been transferred to the new site.

Some of the more modern furnishings at the current hospital will be transferable to the new facility.

“As with any new healthcare build, there is a responsibility on the local health region to fundraise for those pieces inside the facility. If you took the facility upside down, anything that would fall out they would have to purchase, and they have to fundraise for that,” Bernier Delainey said. “We’re fortunate 100 per cent of the cost of the building is being financed by the province because it is a provincial building. If it wasn’t a provincial hospital then the local community would be responsible for another 20 per cent of the construction cost, on top of fundraising for the pieces inside the building.” 

The Saskatchewan Hospital is the only psychiatric rehabilitation hospital in the province. 

The new hospital will be a modern facility with a total of 284 beds for patients, with 188 to be established as psychiatric rehabilitation beds to replace the existing 156-bed facility, and a separate 96-room secure unit for male and female offenders with mental health issues.

The New Beginnings fundraiser campaign is only focusing on fundraising for the rehabilitation facility, not the separate offenders’ facility.

“We’re looking at what is available in the hospital today that can be brought over, and what do we need to augment our therapy programs and make this hospital a place of healing,” Bernier Delainey said.

She said the current facility, which first opened in 1914, is deteriorating and needs to be replaced.

Some of the problems with the existing facility are a lack of private rooms for patients so the new facility will address that issue and provide more privacy for individuals in care.

“When you are trying to get healthy, having some private, quiet space is absolutely crucial in that journey,” Bernier Delainey said.

She added the old facility was constructed at a time when “the treatment of mental health issues was looked at completely different than it is today. So it doesn’t meet the needs of psychiatry today.”

For the fundraising campaign, organizers have met and interviewed stakeholders around the province to solicit feedback on the project. They are currently working on recruiting more volunteers throughout Saskatchewan.

Upcoming in the local area, musicians Beer League will have a fundraiser concert featuring local talent at Gold Eagle Casino in North Battleford on May 6 starting at 8 p.m. to benefit the campaign.

 

angela.brown@jpbg.ca