LGH Foundation’s historic $100-million It’s Your Hospital campaign at halfway mark

BIG. That’s the first word that springs to mind when describing Lions Gate Hospital Foundation’s latest fundraising campaign “It’s Your Hospital.”

How big, you ask? $100 million big. In fact, it is the biggest fundraising campaign the LGH Foundation has undertaken.

As reported in this space last week, LGH is inching closer to getting a new acute care facility on the site of the old Activation building that will be home to eight state-of-the-art operating rooms and 108 (mostly single) patient rooms.

To help make that a reality, the Foundation is committed to raising $100 million of the estimated $200 million cost to build a new acute care site at LGH. To do so, it launched “It’s Your Hospital” campaign for Life-Changing Care, the most ambitious campaign in Foundation history, to celebrate all that is amazing about LGH and raise funds for a project that will support the delivery of best practices for in-patient medical and surgical care now and well into the future.

“This is a pivotal moment in our hospital’s history,” says Ryan Beedie, Chair – LGH Campaign, President, Beedie Development Group. “With the backing of our politicians, our business leaders and our community, we can also make it our greatest legacy in support of excellence in health care.”

Click here to find out more about It’s Your Hospital campaign.

Community generosity at work

As you may recall, in 2015 local entrepreneur Paul Myers made the largest single donation in B.C. history by gifting $25 million to support the future development of LGH. Since then, the Foundation has raised another $25 million. In the two weeks since the Ministry of Health announcement, another $900,000 has poured in.

“Yes, it’s an ambitious target but the Medical and Surgical Centre is a critical development that we need now,” says Judy Savage, President, LGH Foundation. “The North Shore community has shown us repeatedly how passionate it is about this hospital and I believe residents will embrace this campaign to make sure we get this amazing new facility. Our community leaders have already stepped up to give us a $50-million winning start and when the whole community comes on board we will build a lasting legacy for life changing care.”

Building for the future

In consultation with more than 250 senior staff, physicians and senior medical leaders, LGH has developed a plan that will make the new acute care site at LGH the new gold standard in modern hospital design.

For patients and staff, the new facility will offer:

•  Modern, high-quality medical and surgical services and care
  • Greater comfort, privacy and dignity while in hospital care
  • Faster recovery due to a more healing and restorative environment
  • Shorter, safer hospital stays through better healing and improved infection control
  • Faster access to medical and surgical services
  • An environment that will attract the best doctors, nurses and allied health-care professionals to LGH.

LGH’s medical and surgical services have grown tremendously over the years and the hospital has been able to attract the very best doctors and nurses who come because they value the work culture and sense of community, says Dr. Ramesh Sahjpaul, Chief, Coastal Department of Surgery and Medical Director, Surgery Program.

Staff pride

“We take great pride in providing the very best care for our patients,” he says.

“While we are still at heart a community hospital, we have evolved into a major centre for medical education aligned with the UBC medical school and residency training programs,” continues Dr. Sahjpaul. “We offer specialized surgical services to ‎patients not only from the North Shore, but indeed from across the province. But we have been limited for many years by our physical space constraints… This new medical and surgical tower will allow us to continue to provide the very best quality care.”

Click here to donate.

For more information, contact Yolanda Brooks at Yolanda.Brooks@vch.ca.

LGH Foundation’s Asian Advisory Committee includes (L-R) Clarinda Kung, Tony Kook, Bill Yee, Yang Want, Edith Chan and Andy Kai.