The Haliburton Highlands Health Services Foundation’s ‘Here for You in the Highlands’ campaign ended the way it started Nov. 1 – with another $500,000 from the Cockwell family and Haliburton Forest.
Campaign chair Tayce Wakefield said the Cockwell’s overall $1 million donation had brought the Foundation effort to an end – having raised more than $6.225 million to date.
She lauded other community donors in further announcing they had exceeded their original goal of $4.3 million, for CT, mammography, new ultrasound, picture archiving communications system, and related technologies. She noted it was enough money to also provide for an urgently-needed new x-ray suite.
Malcolm Cockwell, the Forest’s managing director, said, “the importance of the diagnostic imaging campaign’s objectives was clear to our group from the first discussion with HHHS. Increasing the capability and capacity of the hospital is critical to the well-being of our employees, clients, their families, visitors, and all other residents in the region. This resulted in our initial gift at the beginning of this campaign.”
He added, “over the last few months, the generosity of the community has been astounding: large gifts and small gifts together have enabled this immensely positive investment in our local health services. The generosity of the community is such a clear demonstration of the importance of this initiative, that we were motivated to make a second gift.”
Large and small gifts made
Wakefield said they appreciated the donation for taking them “over the top, with the help of the incredible support from over 650 donors.” She thanked the leadership of the volunteer campaign cabinet (Greg Bishop, Kurtis Bishop, David Blodgett, Michael Harrison, Peter Henry, Pat Kennedy, Klara Oyler, Keith Sjögren, Roger Trull and Dale Walker).
Foundation executive director, Melanie Klodt Wong said, in mid-September, Christine Tutssel and Rob Holl announced they would match all gifts to the end of October up to $500,000. “This has inspired more donors and we are pleased to announce that their matching challenge has been fully met.
“It has been such an incredible campaign, with the breadth of support from the community, including the amazing group of volunteers I’ve had the pleasure to work with. Without them, this would not have been possible, and definitely not at the speed at which it was accomplished.”
Haliburton Highlands Health Services CEO Veronica Nelson said, “adding these diagnostic imaging technologies and services is the first step forward in our plans to build capacity in, and expand, healthcare services in the County.
“Our community deserves access to excellent local care. We thank every donor for their support in helping us optimize health and wellbeing in the County.”
She said more than 1,000 patients had already undergone CT scans, and the mammography unit will be installed in January.
HHHS Foundation board chair David Blodgett said with the province requiring the community to fund the majority of capital investments, the Foundation’s core purpose is to work closely with the community to raise the necessary funds to support and enable HHHS to better serve healthcare needs, acute care, long-term care and community services. He said this campaign’s record-breaking success had broadened their donor base. “We look forward to working with all of our donor partners to build on this success as we forge ahead.”
Warden Liz Danielsen said, “improving healthcare locally is an important enabler for community, social and economic development. County council voted to support this campaign ($1 million) because we recognized the benefit of keeping our emergency services close to home and to providing a foundation of broad-based support.”
She added because of the new technology, their EMS teams had improved response times to local emergencies by 28 per cent (CTAS1), “assuring residents that more ambulances are readily available across the County.
