Record-breaking donation from Peterborough’s Dragon Boat Festival

Photo: Celebrating the Peterborough’s Dragon Boat Festival donation from left to right are PRHC general surgeon Dr. Brie Banks, President & CEO of Kawartha Credit Union Norah McCarthy, President & CEO of the PRHC Foundation Lesley Heighway, and Festival Chair Michelle Thornton. Behind them, Festival participants and supporters raise their paddles to show off the record-breaking amount of the 2024 donation.

On October 9th, the PRHC Foundation proudly hosted this year’s Peterborough’s Dragon Boat Festival gift announcement. Together, the Festival’s host team, Survivors Abreast, the Dragon Boat Festival Planning Committee, Platinum Sponsor Kawartha Credit Union, paddlers, volunteers, and supporters, presented the Foundation with a record-breaking donation of $312,025.18 – the largest single gift in the Festival’s history!

This remarkable achievement underscores the power of the community coming together to support world-class cancer care at Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC). PRHC Foundation President & CEO, Lesley Heighway, expressed deep gratitude for the Festival’s continued dedication to advancing cancer care in our region. Dr. Brie Banks, PRHC general surgeon, also shared her appreciation, highlighting the life-changing impact this donation will have on her patients by bringing breast seed localization technology to the hospital.

The 2024 Festival’s extraordinary success reflects the incredible passion and commitment of organizers, paddlers, donors, sponsors, volunteers, and vendors. Their collective efforts are transforming cancer care for the thousands of patients who rely on PRHC.

As part of the Campaign for PRHC, this donation will allow the Health Centre to continue investing in critical advancements in cancer care technology like digital pathology and breast seed localization, empowering PRHC to reimagine the future of health and care for our region.

WATCH: Together, we’re reimagining health and care at our hospital

The $60 million Campaign for PRHC is the largest fundraising campaign in Peterborough Regional Health Centre’s and the PRHC Foundation’s history. Our community’s support of the campaign reflects our shared belief that we can’t afford to let the standard of care we’ve all helped establish slip away. Together, we’re reimagining health and care at our hospital by:

  • Empowering world-class care close to home
  • Fuelling innovation and introducing new lifesaving services to our region
  • Attracting top healthcare professionals
  • Inspiring and supporting solutions to critical hospital challenges

Watch the video to hear more!

Lakefield & District Lions Club launches Collaboration 50/50 Cash Raffle

On September 16th, the Lakefield & District Lions Club launched their new Collaboration 50/50 Cash Raffle! PRHC Foundation is excited to be one of the selected beneficiaries, alongside Kawartha Food Share, Community Care, and the Lakefield & District Lions. Raffle funds donated to the PRHC Foundation will empower world-class care at PRHC by fuelling innovation and bringing new, lifesaving services to our region. 

Ontario residents, 18 years of age or older, can purchase 50/50 tickets here. The draw will take place on November 15th. (License Number RAF1404060)

Help bring the best the world has to offer to our doorstep

Guided by Peterborough Regional Health Centre’s vision, led by campaign volunteers, and made possible by donors like you, we’ll propel innovation and transform care at our hospital through the Campaign for PRHC. Together, we’ll help advance the following areas of care: 

Cardiac Care – $11 million

Donor support is helping unlock opportunities and put the people, infrastructure, systems and programs in place to allow world-class cardiac care across the spectrum.

This includes building and equipping a new cardiac electrophysiology lab that will allow the cardiac care team to diagnose and treat patients with abnormal heart rhythms at PRHC for the first time in its history. These patients will no longer have to travel to hospitals as far away as Toronto or Kingston for lifesaving treatment.  

Cancer Care – $12 million

Donations are empowering experts to treat more patients with more cancer types, support earlier diagnosis, and ensure more effective treatments, close to home.

These life-changing advancements include digital pathology, a state-of-the-art, artificial intelligence supported laboratory technology that will help complete repetitive, time-consuming tasks in minutes instead of hours, so doctors can make diagnoses and treatment decisions sooner. 

PRHC will also expand pediatric cancer care, with a space designed for the expert delivery of cancer care to children. This will help keep vulnerable patients from becoming sicker, while lessening the big emotional and financial burden faced by families when they have to travel for their child’s lifesaving treatment.

Minimally Invasive Intervention – $14 million

Your gifts are allowing doctors, nurses and staff to treat patients with multiple life-threatening conditions – safely, quickly – in state-of-the-art new facilities like a hybrid operating room (OR). 

The advanced technology in a hybrid OR allows specialized care teams to perform multiple open and minimally invasive operations on the same patient, on the same day, in the same room. This means safer, more comfortable care and better results for a patient who would otherwise need multiple surgeries with months-long recovery time in between, if their health would even allow it. 

Mental Health – $4 million

Donors are helping to create healing environments and address increasing demand for care with modern mental health spaces. 

New areas at PRHC will include a Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) courtyard – a safe, supportive outdoor space for some of the sickest patients in our hospital. PICU patients currently can’t go outside even though their stay could be weeks or months long. Research shows time outdoors improves outcomes and reduces length of stay in hospital, as well as the use of antidepressants.

PRHC will also help meet growing demand for psychiatric emergency care by expanding and improving the Crisis Response Unit in the Emergency Department. Increasing the size of the space will create a waiting area especially for children and youth in crisis and their families, as well as an accessible washroom with a shower, and a secure, short-stay area for high-risk patients who need enhanced nursing care. 

Urgent Needs – $17 million

Your gifts are enabling PRHC to respond quickly to the top emerging priorities each year, in areas like the Emergency Department, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and Breast Assessment Centre. 

Physician Innovation Accelerator Endowed Fund – $2 million 

Donations are helping PRHC invest in physician-driven research and creativity that will result in game-changing advances in patient care. The hospital will equip several doctors a year with the support to design, apply and evaluate their innovations. Not only will this benefit patients by helping them get out of hospital and back to their lives sooner, but it will also help PRHC attract and keep top-notch physicians.

Grateful family fundraising for pediatric cancer care expansion

Peterborough mom Victoria Wasson says a part of her will forever relive the day her son, Wyatt, was diagnosed with stage four neuroblastoma. Two years ago at just eight months old, Wyatt received a scan on a donor-funded CT machine at PRHC which led to the diagnosis. 

Victoria shares, “On that day we were surrounded by the most compassionate and empathetic nurses and doctors. They immediately began to fight with us to save our son and to keep our family together.” 

Thanks to donors, Wyatt was able to receive some of his treatment at PRHC. This allowed the Wassons to stay close to home, pick up their daughter from school, and be home to have family dinner together. 

As of March 2023, Wyatt is in remission. Inspired by the expert, compassionate care he received, Victoria has launched a $5,000 fundraiser in support of pediatric cancer care expansion, one of the priorities of the PRHC Foundation’s $60 million Campaign for PRHC. The Wassons are dedicated to giving back as thanks for Wyatt’s care, and to help expand pediatric cancer care at PRHC so other children like him can receive their treatment there. 

Please visit the Wassons’ personal fundraising page to learn more about Wyatt’s journey or to make a donation.

A message from Dr. Lynn Mikula, PRHC’s President & CEO

Dr. Lynn Mikula, PRHC’s President & CEO, believes that Peterborough Regional Health Centre is at a crucial turning point and ready to accomplish great things, but that it won’t be possible without the support of PRHC Foundation donors. Endorsing the $60 million Campaign for PRHC, she says: 

“PRHC is a thriving organization that’s home to incredibly dedicated and compassionate professionals. But it’s safe to say that the last few years haven’t been easy ones—they’ve tested us all. However, everyone on our PRHC team continues to deliver the best care they can under these circumstances. 

Our hospital may have opened in 2008, but it was designed and built more than 16 years ago. Equipment that was once state-of-the-art is out-of-date. We’re running out of space. The population is growing and aging, leading to more complex care needs and increasing patient numbers. Plus, hospitals across Ontario have a shortage of healthcare workers. It’s taking a toll on our hardworking frontline professionals. 

There are obstacles—and we need fresh, smart, and creative ideas to address them. I’m confident that PRHC’s healthcare professionals are up to the challenge. Together, we’re ready to achieve great things!

In April 2024, we launched PRHC’s new vision for the future. It recognizes the realities we’re working within and reflects the inspiration, talent, and willingness of the PRHC team. Our people have the energy, expertise, imagination, and drive to respond to an evolving environment, but they can’t do it alone. Your support is critical to success in our mission to provide compassionate care and innovative solutions to our region’s healthcare challenges.

On behalf of everyone here at your regional hospital, thank you for supporting the $60 million Campaign for PRHC.” 

For more information or to support the Campaign for PRHC, please donate online or call 705-876-5000.

The impact of your early campaign support is being felt through exciting investments

PRHC Foundation’s $60 million Campaign for PRHC focuses on raising funds for extensive hospital advancements in cardiac care, cancer care, minimally invasive surgeries, interventional radiology, mental health and addictions services, and a physician-driven innovation accelerator research fund. Since 2020, the Foundation has been working with donors to build support for the campaign, and these efforts have already raised $45.5 million – or 75% – of the $60 million goal. 

The impact of the funds raised to date is being felt through exciting campaign investments already made – thank you! These include: 

  • A second MRI (pictured above) to facilitate up to 5,000 more procedures a year, addressing wait times from a 53% increase in demand and improving diagnostic care close to home
  • The upgrade and replacement of two Cardiac Cath Lab suites with state-of-the-art technology for better visualization and shorter, safer procedures
  • Two new cutting-edge CT scanners to support the early diagnosis of cancer and other conditions
  • The renovation and upgrade of the interventional radiology suites to enhance patient care and introduce endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) here for the first time to stop strokes as they’re happening
  • The upgrade of four general operating rooms with advanced minimally invasive tools so experts can perform essential surgeries with new, fluorescence-guided imaging and increased precision
  • The opening of the new Scotiabank Youth Eating Disorders Day Treatment Clinic to support youth aged 12-25 who need lifesaving care to normalize eating and restore weight
  • Urgent needs as identified by the hospital, including critical equipment and technology that supported PRHC’s new designation as a Level III Trauma Centre 
For more information or to support the Campaign for PRHC, please donate online or call 705-876-5000.

We can design our healthcare future or let it be designed for us

A message to donors from Lesley Heighway, PRHC Foundation’s President & CEO:

“What an incredible feeling it is to share the biggest news in our Foundation’s history: the launch of the $60 million Campaign for PRHC.

Walking the Health Centre hallways, I see firsthand the power and joy of your philanthropy. Your donations touch every part of our hospital, ensuring top-quality healthcare is available close to home. You’ve funded millions of dollars in equipment and technology, and the very building where we all receive care.

For some patients, your generosity has meant the difference between life and death. For others, it’s meant accessing the best care available instead of none at all. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.

But our work isn’t done. Twenty-five years ago, donors started the campaign to build this hospital, and now, we stand on the cusp of the next generation of care.

Our Health Centre and the communities we serve face serious challenges, and we need creative, efficient solutions to tackle them. The choice is ours: design our healthcare future or let it be designed for us.

For 16 years, I’ve had the honour and privilege of working with generous and caring donors every day. The collective pride and sense of responsibility we feel for PRHC’s patients is unparalleled. So, at this pivotal moment in our journey, we’re rallying once again and rising to the occasion, refusing to accept the status quo.

Your gifts to the Campaign for PRHC uphold our shared belief that we are the architects of our healthcare future. By funding state-of-the-art technology, fuelling innovation, bringing lifesaving new services, and positioning our hospital to attract expert healthcare providers, we’re ushering in a new era of care for our region.

Together, we’re reimagining health and care at our hospital.

On behalf of everyone at the PRHC Foundation and PRHC, especially patients and their loved ones, thank you for your support.”

WATCH Heart of Healthcare, Episode 4, where Lesley Heighway talks to local media personality and Foundation donor, Mike Melnik, about the $60 million Campaign for PRHC – the biggest in its history – and addresses a common concern: Facing system-wide healthcare challenges, how can we make sure PRHC’s patients don’t get left behind?

For more information or to support the Campaign for PRHC, please donate online or call 705-876-5000.

Cancer Takedown: A spirit-raiser and fundraiser

Cancer Takedown is a spirit-raiser for anyone touched by cancer. This night of song and solidarity brings attention to the mental and emotional burden of cancer and unites people through shared experience, while fundraising for cancer care at Peterborough Regional Health Centre. 

The third annual event will feature performances by Kate Suhr, Melissa Payne, The Weber Brothers, Linda Kash, Megan Murphy, Kate Brioux, Denise Oucharek, and Anthony Bastianon.  

  • Date: Thursday, November 7th, 2024  
  • Location: Market Hall 
  • Tickets: Buy here
  • T-shirts: Email Amy

Check out the highlights reel from last year’s concert…

Get ready to ride: Join the Hunter Fondo in support of lifesaving care at two hospitals

The Peterborough Cycling Club presents the 3rd Annual Hunter Fondo, Saturday, September 14th, in memory of cycling enthusiast John Hunter. 

This year’s ride will feature a choose your own adventure poker ride. Sign up for the:

  • 30k Trail Heaven
  • 50k Pastry Ride
  • 75k Frappe le Rue 
  • 125k It’s Going to be an Easy Ride

Whichever ride you pick, all cyclists will start at 100 Acre Brewery. On your way, grab a coffee and pastry at local favourite Pastry Peddler, and visit Sprinkle n’ Things before heading home to enjoy a meal prepared by Ashburnham Ale House at 100 Acre Brewery.

Proceeds will be split between the Peterborough Regional Health Centre Foundation and Campbellford Memorial Hospital Foundation. At PRHC, funds raised will support the advancement of world-class cardiac care in our region. Visit the PCC website for more information or to register.