Help Young Patients Survive & Thrive
You can help us raise $310,000 for intensive care equipment for seriously ill children and babies at Victoria General Hospital, our Island’s pediatric specialty hospital.
Vancouver Island families with sick children rely on our hospital to have life-saving equipment needed to help their little ones survive, get healthy and get back home.
Here is the Equipment You Can Help Fund
Because when children are critically ill, all that matters is making them well again
Every baby and child cared for in the Pediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care requires complex, sophisticated treatment.
In Neonatal Intensive Care, our hospitals care for premature and critically ill newborns. Some are small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Some are suffering from breathing problems, heart conditions or digestive issues.
In Pediatric Intensive Care, a wide range of infants and children recover from life-threatening injuries or illnesses such as diabetes, cancer, or genetic conditions.
Over 500 babies born each year in the delivery rooms of VGH will need intensive care and hundreds more critically ill and injured children will require continuous observation and life-supporting care.
This is why we need your help. Your gift will support advanced diagnosis and treatment for thousands of critically ill babies and children at Victoria General Hospital.
Victoria General Hospital – our Island’s Pediatric Specialty Hospital
Did you know that more than 90% of Vancouver Island children who need hospital care are treated on the Island? And that Victoria General Hospital is our Island’s only pediatric specialty hospital?
Victoria General Hospital provides intensive care to children across the region, operating the only high-level Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care Units outside the Lower Mainland. For families already coping with having a sick child, being able to stay home on the Island, close to family and friends, is far less stressful.
Please consider making a gift to help fund leading-edge diagnostic and treatment equipment for critically ill babies and children.
Mom & Dad’s Story: Baby Ayvrie
For the first year of her life, our Ayvrie never left Victoria General Hospital.
On April 8, 2013 at just 28 weeks, baby Ayvrie came into this world weighing only 2 pounds. Before we even had a chance to hold her, she was transferred to the highest level of the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
She was tiny, fragile and very sick with her respiratory system and heart underdeveloped. Our daughter would need intensive, life-saving care from a team of specialists to survive. We were beyond scared.
It broke our hearts to see our brand new girl in an incubator, connected to dozens of wires, tubes and machines.
There was very little we could do as parents to make things better for her — we were totally reliant on the nurses and doctors, with their expertise and sophisticated equipment, to keep Ayvrie alive.
After staying in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for seven months, Ayvrie still could not breathe on her own. She was taken to Pediatric Intensive Care for another five months where she continued to receive the complex support she needed.
We were so grateful to have this advanced level of care available close to home in Victoria. We can’t even imagine what travelling to another city would be like during this long and difficult process.
April 14, 2014 was an amazing day for our family. Less than a week after her first birthday, Ayvrie was ready to come home at last.
We dressed her in a bright and cheery spring outfit, overjoyed to know she was finally healthy and strong enough to leave the hospital and take her first breaths of fresh air. Without the nurturing, healing environment of the Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care Units, this never would have been possible.
The nurses and doctors really felt like our extended family and we were completely overwhelmed by the love and care everyone showed to Ayvrie. She was in the best possible hands, growing strong and receiving the care she needed to thrive.
This spring the Victoria Hospitals Foundation is asking you to help support several pieces of essential equipment for Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care at Victoria General Hospital.
You can help babies and children, like Ayvrie, who need life-saving care to get well and go home to their families. We can tell you firsthand what a difference your support makes.
– Liz and Willie Monaghan
