The Nanaimo & District Hospital Foundation goes golfing with the 33rd Golf for Life to raise money for NRGH
For 33 years, Golf for Life has brought golfers, community leaders, healthcare supporters and local businesses together for the greater good and some friendly competition at the Nanaimo Golf Club. (Photo by Joe Pugh / CHLY 101.7FM)
The Nanaimo & District Hospital Foundation and the Nanaimo Golf Club pair up once again on the green with their Golf for Life fundraiser.
The hospital foundation is a charitable organization that partners with donors, healthcare providers, and the community, to focus on improving healthcare in the Central Vancouver Island area. The foundation supports the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital (NRGH), Oceanside Health Centre, Dufferin Place, Trillium Lodge, and Eagle Park. Additionally, it operates Lifeline Nanaimo, a senior care product program, and Code Brew Cafe, a coffee shop located at NRGH, with revenues from both going directly to their fundraising efforts.
For 33 years, Golf for Life has brought golfers, community leaders, healthcare supporters and local businesses together for the greater good and some friendly competition at the Nanaimo Golf Club.
Tina Moreira, is manager of corporate and community engagement with the Nanaimo & District Hospital Foundation, and organizer of the fundraiser. She is excited for this year’s edition, but is somewhat secretive about what equipment they’re raising money for.
“We will be launching our largest campaign to date that the Nanaimo District Hospital Foundation has ever embarked on,” said Moreira. “This year we will be launching a really exciting campaign for surgery within our hospital.”
While the specifics are yet to be revealed, Moreira hints that this year’s focus is on surgical equipment. She said the announcement is intentionally saved for the day of the tournament, so that healthcare workers can explain to donors why the equipment acquisition is necessary.
Last year’s tournament raised more than $133,000 towards replacing ten resectoscopes used in urology. With sponsorships included, Moreira says the event raised more than $200,000. The 2024 campaign raised approximately $90,000 for vital sign monitors in the NRGH’s emergency department.
Moreira went into detail on the 2024 fundraiser and its impact.
“The more vital signs monitors you have within the emergency room, the quicker people are going to get through, because you can get that vital piece of information quicker.”
As of today, the hospital foundation has 4,225 donors and has donated more than 18 million dollars. Golf for Life has been an annual event for the last three decades providing the funds necessary to equip the region’s medical facilities with the equipment and technology needed to help clinicians, medical teams, and patients.
Moreira described the importance of the fundraiser for the hospital’s workers.
“They [Health Care Workers] see the response from our donors within the room, and it really touches them, and it brings a you know it it really makes them think like oh people are listening to us, people are willing to give. They want to make patient experience and staff experience better for everybody on North and Central Vancouver Island because essentially NRGH, well, essentially NRGH is a tertiary hospital for all of North and Central Vancouver Island. So any additional equipment is improving healthcare for everybody.”
Jason Sutherland, director of the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Health Services and Policy Research, explained funding from charitable foundations can help hospital budgets by paying for equipment, allowing money that would go to those purchases to be directed to other areas of hospital care.
“For clinicians, they would be on the leading edge of having advanced diagnostic treatments or imaging that would be able to assure patients that they're being taken care of with the most modern and technologically advanced equipment available on the market.”
Sutherland commented on the importance of keeping medical equipment up to date.
“Having the most modern technology is often very important for detecting early stage conditions or disease progression. So it's important for hospitals and clinicians to be aware of and make sure that their technologies are up to date to aid in helping patients through their disease course.”
He explains Canada's provincial healthcare system and its “hub and spoke” model for sophisticated medical equipment at larger medical facilities.
“Most provinces operate a hub and spoke model. That means that they centralize expensive or complicated, sophisticated equipment because of its costliness in urban hubs, and then in the spokes are the outlying smaller communities.”
Regionally, the north island benefits from a well equipped hospital.
“So upgrading equipment in, say, Nanaimo would have the positive benefit of these outlying regional areas.”
This year marks the foundation's 33rd year of Golf for Life. Moreira says in the early days of the event, then board chair Tom Harris helped start the golf tournament as a way to bring people together. Since then, Golf for Life has reportedly raised more than $1.2 million dollars for NRGH.
Moreira commented on the attraction of the event.
“The most important piece about Golf for Life is bringing people together over a around a common kind of goal. A lot of the people that participate in Golf for Life have been participating for years and years, and it just becomes part of their summer windup. It is a really fun day, but it also amplifies the message that the Nanaimo District Hospital Foundation is trying to do in in advancing healthcare for Central and North Vancouver Island.”
The Golf for Life fundraiser event is slated for this Friday September 18th starting at 12:00 p.m. at the Nanaimo Golf Club.
Further information on registration is available on the Foundation’s Golf for Life webpage.
Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.
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