Thunder Bay hospital receives historic gift
The Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation has approved a record-setting $22,815,488 for the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre.
The foundation’s Capital Grants program will provide $10.3 million for more than two dozen individual investments at the hospital, including $3 million to replace almost 200 hospital beds with SMART beds, $1 million for a new Linear Accelerator at the Cancer Centre, and a wide range of smaller upgrades to improve and modernize the facility.
This year’s grant will also provide $9.3 million for the Cardiovascular Surgery Unit, a still-under-construction extension of the hospital complex. With the new investment, the foundation’s total commitment to the surgery unit has topped $23 million.
“Every service at the hospital has benefited from this announcement today,” says foundation CEO Glenn Craig.
A great deal of the foundation’s funding has been raised through 50/50 draws.
Craig describes the success of the 50/50 as “really the story of the last few years.”
He says even a decade ago, the foundation would be thrilled to give a couple of million dollars a year, making the funds of the last few years a total “game changer.”
Because the hospital is now 21 years old, some equipment is becoming outdated or reaching the end of its lifespan, making the millions of dollars of grant funds essential.
Patricia Lang, Chair of the hospital’s board of directors, says she would have never imagined seeing a number like $23 million when she first joined the board.
She is grateful to the foundation for “giving our clinicians the tools to be able to provide the very best care to patients and families.”
Lang recognizes that not every hospital gets the sort of financial support that Thunder Bay gets, saying the hospital is in “an enviable position to be able to replace our aging capital, and be able to modernize.”
She says these upgrades help with recruitment and retention of staff at the hospital.
Lang also states that the hospital’s new cardiovascular unit is on time and on budget, with an expected opening in 2028.
