The Royal Inland Hospital Foundation is hoping to raise $35 million by 2023 as part of the ongoing Patient Care Tower construction project in Kamloops.
It is the largest fundraising campaign in the history of the foundation with money going towards medical equipment and “patient comfort items” in both the new tower and areas of the existing hospital which will be renovated starting next year.
To date, the RIH Foundation says they’ve raised just over $15 million as part of the “Together We Rise” campaign.
“The new tower will not only have a significant impact for the people we serve, but for the entire healthcare team. The private rooms provide lots of natural light and a quiet space for patients and families as they move through their healthcare journey,” Tracey Rannie, the Executive Director of Clinical Operations at RIH said.
“The whole healthcare team will benefit from the new, larger spaces with the required equipment so they can continue to provide excellent quality care. This is an exciting time for RIH.”
The nine-storey patient care tower is the largest capital project in the history of Kamloops at $417 million. The B.C. government is contributing $202 million, Interior Health is adding $23 million, while the Thompson Regional Hospital District is adding another $172 million.
The RIH Foundation committed to raising the remaining $20 million, though CEO Heidi Coleman is confident they’ll been able to raise the additional $15 million to meet the ongoing demand for state-of-the-art equipment at the hospital.
“We are off to a great start thanks to the incredible efforts of the community and business leaders on our campaign committee. The amount raised so far, which has just been in the soft launch stage, is very encouraging,” Coleman added. “We have seen how generous Kamloops and the surrounding communities are when it comes to supporting RIH.”
“I am positive that individual citizens, community groups and local businesses will continue to give in support of this amazing project, which will benefit the entire region for decades to come.”
The new patient care tower will include over a hundred private patient rooms, a helicopter pad, youth and adult mental health units, a new surgical floor with 13 operating theatres, maternal and child health services, a rehabilitation unit, as well as trauma, stroke and neurosciences units.
Construction on the project began in 2018 and the tower is scheduled to open in the summer of 2022.
