Guest Speakers on July 26th were Janice Skot, CEO RVH (above left with Kempenfelt Rotary President Monique Vaillancourt) and Dave McCullough, Chair of the RVH Hearts and Minds Campaign
 
Dave is President of the Barrie Club and is very proud of the commitments that the three Clubs in Barrie have made to RVH over
the years which are as follows:
  • In 2006 the 3 clubs commitment $1,250,000 to the campaign to build a Cancer Centre.
  • $200,000 of that was committed by our Kempenfelt Rotary Club.
  • The Cancer Centre opened in 2012 and had 116,000 visits last year.
  • The current Hearts and Minds Campaign began in 2015 and our Kempenfelt Rotary Club was the first to make a commitment of $100,000. By the time that commitment is complete our club will have contributed $300,000 to RVH.
"Quite an accomplishment for a young club" Dave said.

The Hearts and Minds campaign is nearing completion with $21.7 million collected on a goal of $25 million.

Janice said The Hearts and Minds Campaign included the expansion of advanced Cardiac Care at RVH. They have gone from a
team of one Cardiologist to 8 now on staff. The goal is to do primary care that previously required a trip with obvious risk
to Southlake.

The Minds part of the Campaign refers to child and youth mental health and opening of an 8 bed ward to
treat young people with mental illnesses. There is also an outreach program to help young people receive treatment in
the community from community partners and a day hospital program. RVH has just hired its first Child Phycologist.

The long term strategy of the hospital requires the ongoing replacement of equipment which is not funded by the
government. They have just purchased a new CT scanner and required the ongoing support of the community as most
equipment has a 5 to 9 year lifespan.

RVH is a teaching hospital and is addressing the ongoing shortage of family doctors through their family and medical
teaching unit. Each year they recruit 9 doctors into the program who spend 2 years working at RVH in the program.
55% of these Doctors stay in the community to practice when they are through the program.

Engagement of patients and families is an ongoing process for the hospital which helps them to make good decisions
like 24/7 visiting hours. Janice also noted that in a challenging operating environment RVH has balanced the budget for
the 7th year in a row.

Both Janice and Dave thanked our club for the tremendous work that we are doing to assist RVH in their growth and we are very proud to do it. We also thank our supporters because it's with the money raised from our events each year that gives us the ability to make the help them.
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