ICU Expansion
Plans to expand the regional Intensive Care Unit here at Quinte Health Belleville General Hospital took a significant boost in 2020 as the government announced a one–time $4.3m cash injection to create an additional 4 beds within the department.
The COVID-19 Pandemic has underscored the importance of having modern, functional hospital facilities with sufficient capacity to meet any eventuality.
The Intensive Care Unit upgrade will benefit patients not just from Belleville, but from across the region, with construction already underway in order to meet a potential Summer 2021 completion deadline. The goal is clear and that is to protect the health of residents arriving at the unit needing specialized treatment, often with severe, acute medical problems.
Donations are invaluable in helping the BGH Foundation support the purchasing of equipment for these new rooms, which include items such as
- Ventilators
- Patient bedside monitors
- Vital signs machines
- Infusion pumps
- Defibrillators etc.
The variety of equipment necessary to support and monitor patients in critical condition makes intensive care one of the most technologically advanced and resource demanding areas of the hospital.
Our intensive care patients are some of the most vulnerable.
Critically ill or severely injured, they require one-to-one medical attention and continuous monitoring. The broad variety of equipment needed to support these patient makes intensive care one of our hospital’s most technologically demanding areas. Your donation helps these patients get the advanced care they need to recover faster.
“Your gift today will help to ensure world class ICU care remains in your community.”
– Dr Andrew Samis, ICU Physician
“Let me tell you what life is like for patients and families in the intensive care unit. For some very ill patients, I have to put them in a drug induced coma so they have a chance to survive. The patient has very little awareness of what is happening to them. But their families are aware of everything.
The days are a roller coaster for families because their loved one’s condition changes often. Families want to stay glued to their loved one, but the reality is this is a longer-term battle. People will run home to get their phone charger. Then they go home for a nap. After a few days I can convince them that I will call them, day or night, if anything changes with their family member, and they can rush to their side. We are lucky to have an ICU in our own town.
In other communities that lack an ICU, critically ill patients arriving by ambulance, or who have something go wrong during their hospital stay are fragile. Imagine if instead of simply moving the patient to the ICU downstairs you had to see the air ambulance lift off to Toronto with your loved one on board, and you have to follow.
This would mean racing home to pack a bag. Fighting your way down the 401 and into Downtown Toronto. You may have no family to help in the city. You wouldn’t be able to just zip back home for something. You’d start living on hospital food, and this could go on for months.
Your gift today will help to ensure world class ICU care remains in your community.”