Family First Radiothon another huge success, raising over $220,000 for the Health Foundation

MOOSEJAWTODAY.COM — For the past 18 years, the 800 CHAB Family First Radiothon has done its part to help support the Moose Jaw Health Foundation in its quest to ensure the local hospital has everything it needs to provide the best lifesaving care to offer. care possible.

Year after year, dozens of volunteers participate in the 36-hour event, manning phones and taking pledges from the hundreds and hundreds of supporters who offer donations both large and small.

And year after year, Moose Jaw goes above and beyond in their support – this year a goal of $140,000 was set with the aim of purchasing a range of cardiac support equipment, ranging from an automated CPR machine to a portable ECG machine and new and advanced patient stretchers.

Not only was that goal exceeded, Radiothon supporters nearly doubled it, with a total of $229,800 raised during the day and a half of fundraising.

“I’m just overwhelmed,” said Kelly McElree, executive director of the Moose Jaw Health Foundation. “Moose Jaw is so generous and we received so many donations. Everything from Simpsons Seeds to Gibson Energy, the big donation from Health Care Rocks presented by Cypress Paving, but it’s all small donations too. The people who came in and donated, and also the many, many anonymous donations, including a private donation of $50,000. It is the spirit of the community and people recognize that.”

As McElree said, Moose Jaw’s business community has taken a big step forward, as it always does. The largest donations included $25,000 from Simpsons Seeds, $20,000 from CPKC and $14,750 from Gibson Energy, with these totals just a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of small donations received during the event.

One of the major items raised for is a LUCAS automatic resuscitation machine, which carries a price tag of $16,000, with other equipment including:

• An ECG Mac 5500 machine for $22,000 to evaluate and understand heart health by recording the electrical activity of a patient’s heart and helping medical professionals identify arrhythmias, heart attacks and other heart diseases;
  
• A Holter monitor, a small, portable electrocardiogram (ECG) device that continuously records heart rhythms for 24 hours or more while patients go about their daily activities; this machine costs $14,000;
  
• Medication carts that allow staff to organize, store and quickly access life-saving medications for cardiac care patients; the hospital needs four for a total cost of $50,000
  
• Patient stretchers that are comfortable, adaptable and lightweight, offering advanced mobility to ease the physical burden on healthcare workers; the hospital needs six, for a total cost of $30,000

“All of these pieces will help save lives every day at the hospital,” McElree said. “Every year there are more than 2,900 cardiac incidents in hospital, so every three hours there is a cardiac incident, and if people donate today they will save lives.”

This applies to each of the 18 years that the Radiothon has been held. When asked how much equipment the event has purchased over the years for both Union Hospital and Wigmore Hospital, McElree laughed good-naturedly before admitting it was a question he couldn’t answer.

“There are hundreds, literally hundreds,” he said. “Big appliances, beautiful appliances and also simple appliances. You can go to any department of the hospital, any floor, any room, it doesn’t matter if it’s an operating theater or a patient room, it’s all community support, every single one of them.”

The Radiothon also offers medical professionals the opportunity to tell their stories, with several emergency room nurses taking to the air for 36 hours.

“The community makes advanced medicine possible, and you heard it from the ER nurses, they see the level of support that the community gives and that means something,” McElree said. “That’s one of the nice things the Radiothon does, it gives them the opportunity to tell their story and it inspires them every day.”

And then of course there are the 800 CHAB employees. Their work at the event generated donation after donation and played a crucial role in things turning out as incredible as they did.

“Over the 18 years of Radiothon, countless lives from all generations have been touched,” McElree said. “People are alive today because of this Radiothon and the wonderful people who volunteered all this time and put all that effort into every aspect of it. We can’t thank them enough for what they do.”