During one of the most eventful and challenging years for Lions Gate Hospital (LGH), the support we have received from the North Shore community has been incredible.

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, the impact of our donors’ generosity has been felt every day. With $1 million in donations invested in technology, equipment, and PPE, our staff are well prepared for the immediate and long-term fight against COVID-19.

Donations to our Patient Experience Fund and individual gifts from donors also supported many different areas of care, strengthening LGH in the face of the pandemic.

As we near the end of 2020, we’d like to thank all our donors, and showcase our top ten list of new life-saving and enhancing donor-funded purchases at LGH.

Top 10 Donor-Funded Items in 2020

• 15 Kangaroo Bassinets: In the Maternity and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, mothers and babies now have the use of 15 modern bassinets, replacing 30-year-old bassinets in serious need of an upgrade. Their practical design and adjustable height allow the units to fit more snuggly alongside beds, making for easier eye contact, cuddles and diaper changes.

• 15 Televisions: In a year like no other, having access to comforting shows on TV is creating a tremendous impact on the long-term residents at Evergreen House. The televisions provide a morale-boost for residents unable to physically visit their loved ones for long stretches of time.

• 13 Physiological Monitors: These advanced monitors provide seamless physiological monitoring, paying close attention to respiratory and ventilator parameters. The new monitors were deployed in the ER and COVID Units during our efforts to prepare LGH for COVID-19. The total cost for this life-saving equipment was $324,000. Thank you to the Tzu Chi Foundation for purchasing two units, and to every donor who contributed to our North Shore COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund which paid for the additional monitors. These will serve as an invaluable tool across multiple departments for a long time to come.

• 10 Virtual Interpreter Units: There are many different languages spoken on the North Shore which can create communication challenges during medical emergencies. With the purchase of thirteen mobile translation units, frontline staff throughout the hospital now have access to real-time translation services at their fingertips, in more than 100 languages. Watch a live demo of a patient in the Emergency Department using this life-saving device.

• 7 Ventilators: Our COVID-19 Fund enabled LGH to purchase an additional 7 ventilators. These are in addition to the 25 currently in use at the hospital. We cannot thank the North Shore community enough for providing the patients requiring critical care with the gift of life.

• 2 Phacoemulsification Machines: Recent improvements in the provision of eye care include the upgrade of surgical technology for cataracts at LGH. Cataracts are one of the leading causes of blindness in Canada. This new technology allows for smaller incisions, less complications, and reduced rates of astigmatism. Thanks to a donation of $183,000 from an anonymous donor, two phacoemulsification machines were purchased, and thousands of local residents who suffer from visual impairment caused by cataracts will benefit.

• 1 C-Arm X-Ray Machine: A brand new C-Arm X-ray machine was purchased for the Orthopedic Program at LGH. This sophisticated medical imaging machine is primarily used for fluoroscopic intraoperative imaging during orthopedic procedures. The high-resolution X-ray images it takes in real-time allow physicians to monitor progress and immediately make adjustments.

• 1 Neuro Invasive Monitor: Invasive neurological monitoring helps measure, track, and detect pathophysiological changes in the brain following a severe traumatic brain injury. This $37,000 monitor is providing invaluable insights in the General Surgery ward at LGH. The accumulation of donations ranging from $5 to $500 goes a long way to providing important equipment such as this monitor. Every donation of every size truly has a life-saving impact in our community.

• 1 Hana Orthopedic Surgery Table: Also known as the Hana Table, this incredible piece of equipment is improving the future of hip replacement surgery at LGH. Less pain, shorter hospital stays, and faster recovery times are just a few of the benefits it will provide to the 500 patients a year receiving hip replacements at LGH. The Hana Table cost $108,000, and was generously funded by North Shore couple Mike and Joan Michalson.

“There’s a real patient need for this procedure and we think it’s going to improve the outcomes of our hip replacement patients,” says Dr. Rick Nadeau, part of the orthopedic surgical team that has been championing the use of the Hana Table at LGH for the past two years. “As well as better pain relief and improved mobility, this procedure increases the possibility that patients can go home much sooner after surgery, potentially even the same day.”

• 1 NIM Nerve Monitoring System: This nerve integrator monitor allows surgeons to identify, confirm, and monitor motor nerve function in real-time during ENT and general surgeries. Most commonly used at LGH for thyroid cancer and thyroid nodule surgery, it helps surgeons monitor the important nerves that support the vocal cords. Thank you to Peter and Renate Zirpke for funding this vital and important piece of machinery.

“Before we had this machine we would rely on the experience of the surgeon to identify the nerves and preserve them, but this is much more objective and scientific and has made a huge difference in thyroid surgery,“ says Dr. George Chang, general surgeon at LGH with a sub speciality in head and neck surgery.

In our present world of uncertainty, we are grateful to our health-care providers and donors for ensuring that Lions Gate Hospital has the expertise and technology to continue to provide the best we can to our patients.

As you consider your charitable giving for the season, please be assured that 100% of all donations made to the LGH Foundation goes to improving patient care. Our entire community benefits with every gift you make. To support future equipment purchases, and new life-saving technology, please donate online.

As the giving season approaches, there’s no better time to support Lions Gate Hospital.

During one of the most challenging years at LGH, the community has come together like never before – from the 7pm Cheer heard across the North Shore, to the hundreds of individuals and businesses who donated meals, PPE, and funds to support patient care.

Your support ensures that everyone in our community has access to life-changing care.

Whether through donation or action, ‘tis the season of giving. Here are five meaningful ways to support Lions Gate Hospital and the health care heroes that work here year-round.

1. Make a one-time donation. Donating online is easy and takes just a couple of minutes. 100% of donations received benefit patient-care at Lions Gate Hospital.

2. Become an all-seasons donor by signing up to donate monthly. Monthly giving allows you to continue your support easily and make a difference year-round. Learn more about our monthly giving program.

3. Purchase a package of Charity Christmas Cards. Our 2020 Christmas cards are for sale online, from our office, and at all North Shore Save-on-Foods locations.

4. Buy a bar of our Charity Chocolate from any North Shore Save-on-Foods. When you purchase one of these Swiss chocolate bars, you’ll have a chance at winning a $100 gift card to Save-on-Foods. There are five golden tickets hidden in the chocolate bars.

5. Give the gift of kindness and appreciation. Our annual holiday campaign this year includes a card for you to give to your favourite frontline worker. Check your mailbox for our festive donor package which contains the card below.

100% of your donation, including the proceeds from our card and chocolate bar sales, benefit Lions Gate Hospital.

Thank you for your support and stay well this holiday season.

Lions Gate Hospital patient Brian Dougherty takes us inside his battle with COVID-19

Coronavirus stole four weeks of Brian Dougherty’s life but thanks to LGH staff and physicians, access to the right technology, and his previous good health, he survived his brush with the deadly virus.

For 50 years, Brian had managed to avoid a stay in the hospital. That changed dramatically in late March when he was admitted to the Emergency Department with severe shortness of breath.

For two weeks prior he’d been suffering from fevers, terrible night sweats, and debilitating headaches. Hoping his symptoms would subside, he stayed home. But when his breathing got progressively worse, Brian was whisked off by ambulance to LGH Emergency.

After “the best health exam I ever had,” he was admitted to the ICU, where he was attached to a respiratory device that pumped moist air into his lungs. As his condition stabilized, he was moved to the COVID-19 Unit. As well as enduring the physical symptoms and hallucinations caused by brain swelling, being a COVID-19 patient was a very lonely experience. Other than the four brief daily medical checks by staff “dressed like aliens,” Brian’s smartphone was his only connection with family and the outside world.

“The most traumatic part of it was being stuck in a hospital for a month,” he says. “I’m a Type-A, driven kind of guy and it is effectively solitary confinement. I was hooked up to this machine from a cord, so I couldn’t really go further than eight feet from this machine. If I stuck my hand out of the bathroom while still attached to the eight feet of cord, I could basically go to the bathroom.”

Recuperation was a long, slow process and Brian was hooked to a variety of respiratory aids for several weeks to give his lungs time to recover and enable him to go home and continue his convalescence.

“Certainly in my life I’ve never been through anything worse. It is a terrible thing to go through but I’m living, the treatment worked and here I am. I’m very grateful for that part.”

Although Brian is back to his normal routine – including a return to the accountancy practice he’s had on the North Shore for close to four decades – the disease has had a lasting impact. He has experienced the intermittent return of symptoms, lost 35 lbs, and has been left with 65% lung capacity; unlike muscle mass, it can never be regained and the walk up the hill to his North Shore home now leaves him a little puffed. All told, however, he is thankful for having had access to life-saving technology at LGH.

“This experience made me realize that the whole process is more than the people,” says Brian. “I have nothing but praise for all the staff, but you have to match the expertise of the well-trained staff with the latest technology to end up with the optimum result. That is what’s going to make future patients, with whatever their issues happen to be, better. Lions Gate Hospital Foundation performs a very important function by raising money for the hospital to ensure that we all have the latest technology.”

Now, Brian is part of a project to track and monitor the health of COVID-19 patients. More is being
learned every day about the longterm impacts on health, and the knowledge learned from the first
wave of survivors will help refine treatment and follow-up care for future patients.

Imagine being in the midst of a medical emergency, with high-tech equipment beeping and attentive nurses and physicians hovering over you. But when asked a question, you cannot clearly explain how you’re feeling or use the right words to describe what you’re experiencing.

It’s a challenge often faced by patients and medical professionals, especially in a diverse community such as the North Shore. Which is why the multi-modal translation units recently purchased through the Foundation’s Patient Experience Fund are such a game changer for Lions Gate Hospital.

The translator tablet features two options: a live video link with a translator, or a voice-activated virtual interpreter to help health care staff and their patients communicate more effectively with each other.

“Having the virtual online interpretation service is one of the best improvements in patient-care that we’ve had in a very long time.”

– Dr. Cassidy, ER Physician at Lions Gate Hospital

Watch a Live Demo of the Virtual Translator at Lions Gate Hospital

With hospital visitors severely limited during this COVID-19 crisis, the portable translator proved to be an invaluable tool for staff. Between March and June, more than 800 translation calls in a variety of languages, including Farsi, Russian, Bengali, Mandarin, Cantonese, and American Sign Language, have been made on behalf of patients.

“We just love it.”

Emergency Staff have nothing but praise for the new translation technology at LGH.

The multi-modal translation units are available as individual tablets or mounted on wheels for ease of use. Two units are currently in use at LGH (one of which was paid for by an anonymous donor) with another eight on order. Including the price of real-time translation services, the total cost of the program is $280,000.

With the help of our community and generous sponsors, we’re happy to announce we surpassed our fundraising goal and raised $87,302.

On behalf of the North Shore Hospice & Palliative Project, thank you for supporting the North Shore Hike & Bike.

North Shore Hospice Hike & Bike Celebration Video

Each year, close to 300 patients receive care at the 15-bed North Shore Hospice. Hundreds more and their families are supported through the Every Day Counts Program, which offers therapeutic and emotional support.

The North Shore Hospice Hike & Bike proceeds will provide a digital upgrade, enhancing virtual counselling services, family and friend visits, and expanding our virtual outreach program. Read more about the Digital Upgrade Campaign.

Thank you to everyone who submitted a design! The contest is now closed. Charity Christmas Cards are available for purchase. Learn how to buy your cards this year.

Calling all young artists! We’re looking for artwork to adorn our 2020 Christmas Card collection.

Send us your bright, festive designs that represent the North Shore for a chance to have your artwork featured on this year’s Foundation Christmas Card. The winner will also receive a $100 gift card to Park Royal.⁠⁠

This contest is open to students in grades 4-12, and the entry deadline is October 12, 2020.

Entries must be:

• Bright, colourful, festive, and embody the North Shore
• Proportional to reproduction at card size 5″x7″
• Submitted in JPEG format via email to [email protected]

For more information, please call 604-984-5914 or email [email protected]

We’re celebrating ten years of North Shore Hospice and the programs and services that help people in our community living with life-limiting illnesses.

You can join us by supporting our new Digital Upgrade Campaign to ensure that palliative and hospice care on the North Shore continues to thrive. With your help, we will be able to enhance support for hospice patients and connect with more people out in the community.

Please donate today to ensure that we can continue to provide the care and services that allow patients at Hospice and out in the community to live their best life possible.

Family Communications

We want to make it as easy as possible for Hospice patients who may have mobility and/or sensory issues to stay in touch with family and friends near and far. With the right, easy-to-use technology in each of the 15 patient rooms, we can ensure that patients with mobility and/or sensory issues can continue to connect with the outside world.

Home Away From Home

By bringing new music and entertainment capabilities to the patient rooms and common areas at Hospice, we’ll be able to offer patients and their families more options for taking a moment to relax. These will include a sound system in the Great Room, new gaming systems in the family rooms, and a new Smart TV in each patient room.

Virtual Support

Due to the COVID-19 health crisis the Every Day Counts program became an online service almost overnight. The free program, which provides free practical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological support to patients and their families, continues to serve a community of palliative patients as the pandemic continues.

While the Every Day Counts Centre hopes to bring back face-to-face sessions in the future, right now, staff and volunteers need high-quality tools and equipment to enable them to build and improve the virtual program.

Even when physical distancing restrictions come to an end, the virtual program will become a permanent feature of the Every Day Counts program. People in the community who were not well enough to travel have been connecting with the service for the first time and program leaders would like to extend and enhance services for people who could not access services before.

Please donate today and help us harness the power of technology to support everyone in our community in need of palliative and end-of-life care.

Donate to the Digital Upgrade Campaign

Fara Lambing is a Public Health nurse with the Child & Youth Team on the North Shore. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she wanted to find a way to be more useful. So when she heard about an opportunity to redeploy and join the Personalized Stabilization and Support (PSS) team, she jumped at the opening. It gave Fara the chance to work with the PSS team and visit the COVID-19 patients following their discharge from Lions Gate Hospital.

The PSS team supports people to safely transition from hospital back to home. They provide community/home support and reablement care to increase self-reliance and optimal functionality. This type of care at home aids recovery and aims to get clients back to their normal activity levels as soon as possible. After more than two months with the team, she’s back with Public Health, but with a story to tell and gratitude to offer for her experience. Fara’s put pen to paper in hopes of inspiring other staff within VCH to share their experiences being redeployed during the pandemic.

In-vivo altruism – a novel experience in the time of a novel pandemic

During my redeployment to the PSS team I found the perfect, ethical opportunity to practice “in-vivo altruism” and kindness with the COVID-19 patients I visited in their homes. With the pace of the COVID-19 pandemic, reconnecting to the core of human kindness and altruism was the most effective skill for me to help my clients. It also helped rebuild their sense of self and replenish their motivation to return to who they truly are, despite their new health challenges and physical weakness.

During our weekly huddles, I quickly realized the focus of all my coworkers was also deeply rooted in the concept of kindness and altruism. The internal collaboration of our multidisciplinary team and careful planning of the goals and care plans not only improved the physical health of our COVID-19 clients, but also their emotional resilience, refocusing their energy to the positive.

Our collective efforts to devote quality time and really listen to our clients and their family members during our visits, created an empowering framework in which patients and their families could feel they were deeply and meaningfully seen. This was possible, despite their perceived powerlessness during the pandemic.

I fondly remember our 93-year-old grandma who told me she was banging her plates and cups in bed at 7 p.m. There was our 56-year-old client who, despite his muscle weakness, did his best to be on his balcony and said, “Every day, I applaud facing LGH for all the medical team members from the bottom of my heart.” And a client’s little daughter who happily opened the door for the rehab assistant and screamed, “Daddy’s teacher is here!” She was not even afraid of the yellow gown, face shield, and gloves. This is the least I can offer to recognize the emotional legacy of this pandemic.

Throughout this experience, I learned that it is in the midst of the challenges and interactions with others that we develop an aptitude within us to practice an in-vivo altruism and thereby actualizing our humanity.

I am very grateful to my wonderful Public Health Child & Youth team managers and coworkers who supported me in this valuable redeployment experience. And the outstanding PSS team members who empowered me with their generous guidance and lifesaving skills, always remaining selfless and humble.

-Fara Lambing

This article was written by Jeremy Deutsch, a Communications Specialist for Vancouver Coastal Health.

Paul Myers the local philanthropist who donated $25 million to Lions Gate Hospital and inspired the $100 million campaign to build a state-of-the-art Medical & Surgical Centre at LGH was guest of honour at a gathering to mark the latest phase in the construction of the new development.

He was joined by Ryan Beedie, President of Beedie Development Group and Chair of the campaign which successfully raised $104 million in support of the new facility.

The new plant that will power the new facility, as well as the rest of the LGH campus, is already operational and once this final demolition work is completed, the site will be ready for construction proper to begin.

The COVID-19 health emergency has placed more stringent infection control protocols on all hospitals. With the design of clinically enhanced spaces combined with ability to isolate more patients, the new hospital will be built to handle future health emergencies.

The facility, which will serve as a hub for acute and remote services for the North Shore and Coastal region, will include eight state-of-the-art operating rooms, a therapeutic healing and elder-friendly environment, a virtual health care centre serving more than 180,000 people, as well as 108 single patient rooms.

Construction for the Medical & Surgical Centre is expected to be completed at the end of 2024.

Thanks to Craftsman Collision, close to $120,000 has been raised to build a new Critical Care Unit at Lions Gate Hospital.

A promise by long-time corporate partner Craftsman Collision to donate up to $50,000 to match funds donated to LGH turbo-boosted our campaign for a new Critical Care Unit.

As the success of the campaign grew, Craftsman Collision, which is locally owned and operated by Bill Hatswell and his children Rick, Greg and the Hatswell family, stepped up and increased their gift to $60,000. Close to $120,000 was raised in total.

We also teamed up with Shell to offer a grand prize of free fuel for a year, worth $3,500. Shell has also generously donated twenty-five $75 gift cards so we have a total of twenty-six prizes up for grabs. Our Shell ‘Win Free Fuel’ giveaway has closed, and winners will be announced soon.

With Craftsman Collision, Shell, and the generosity of people like you, we surpassed our goal to help ensure that the Critical Care Unit is equipped and ready to accept its first patients in 2022.