MANITOULIN—One of the most important factors in healing is proper rest and sleep. A hospital bed that is designed with the right features to assist in this healing is an essential part of the equation. Thus the Manitoulin Health Centre (MHC) has launched its new fundraising campaign ‘Sweet Slumbers’ to help replace 20 hospital beds, 10 at each hospital site in Little Current and Mindemoya.
“Our population is aging and so are our beds,” said Derek Graham, president and CEO of the MHC in a release. “When our current beds were purchased in the 1980s and 1990s, the health needs of our patients were very different. General medical/surgical admissions were the order of the day.”
“Today, the focus has shifted to senior’s issues, with more chronic health conditions, and the features required of our hospital beds have also changed,” the MHC release notes. “Today, what’s needed is hospital beds with enhanced features that are more senior-friendly.”
This includes enhanced adjustment options, the ability to lower the beds, and alarm features that notify nursing staff when patients who require mobility assistance are trying to get out of bed-features that help produce a more comfortable and safer healing environment.
Each of the new beds will cost an average of $10,000.
“We have received a donation from each of the Little Current and Mindemoya hospital auxiliarys for a bed (at each),” Mr. Graham told the Recorder. “From a public perspective we have received several inquiries from folks holding some type of fundraising event, and they have been waiting for something they can target on.”
Mr. Graham explained the current beds in the two hospital sites “are of various vintages as they weren’t purchased all at once, but many of them are between 15-20 years old. And as we explain in the release, the features required for beds now are different than they were in the past. Based on our admissions, our patients are more elderly and so the needs are different than in the past as well.”
“This fundraising campaign is going to be a little less hectic than the radiology campaign, which had specific time lines for these pieces of equipment to be replaced in the hospitals,” said Mr. Graham. “This is a different campaign and a different sort of need but the sort of thing people recognize as being important and want to associate with. Hospital beds are a basic need for good care.”
Individuals or organizations can get involved in the fundraising program either by donating a gift of funds towards the goal or by raising funds and purchasing beds. “Donate to our Sweet Slumbers campaign in any of the following categories and be recognized on the Tree of Life: Bronze Leaf-$1,000-$4,999; Silver Leaf-$5,000-9,999; Gold Leaf-$10,000-$24,999; and Rock, for donations of $25,000 or more,” the release continues.
“A leaf or rock can be engraved with your name, your company name, or the name of a loved one, providing a lasting link with this important campaign. You can choose which tree you would like to become part of, at either of Manitoulin Health Centre’s two hospital sites,” the release states. “To get this new campaign off on the right foot, MHC has received a donation from each hospital auxiliary for a new bed. We now have two new beds toward our goal of 20.”
