Recent History – 2003
February 17, 2003, By Kelly Harris, Daily News Staff
It was a sweetheart of a Valentine’s Day gift for the Dawson Creek and District Hospital.
The hospital unveiled its new Telemetry Heart Monitoring System Friday, a machine purchased after two years of community fund raising and at a cost of $140,000. It took the hospital foundation two years to raise $100,000 for the machine and the Peace River Regional District kicked in another $40,000 for the equipment.
“A successful two year campaign has finally bore fruit,” Cleves said. “The Dawson Creek and District Hospital Foundation and the Peace River Regional District Hospital Board have partnered to ensure that heart patients in our local hospital have the best care possible.”
The hospital’s previous heart monitoring machine was a basic system that covered heart rhythms of very few people through several wires and bedside displays. Because the system was so intricate and large, a patient would be forced to stay confined to their beds while being monitored.
The new machine will monitor a variety of heart functions, store the information and transmit health information of several patients directly to the nursing station in the Post Cardiac Care Unit.
“The old telemetry machine is a museum piece,” said Gloria Cleve of the Dawson Creek and District Hospital Foundation. “It’s 20 or 30 years old.”
The new telemetry system uses radio waves through a wireless monitoring system, which allows the patient mobility from bedside monitors of the previous system. What that means is the patient will be able to move throughout the hospital and still be monitored.
The data collected from the patient is then transmitted back to a central monitoring station. This allows for the patient to be monitored constantly through less-intrusive means.
“There is a great deal of stress when a patient is confined to bed and has several wires attached to their body and to a display monitor on a bedside table,” Cleve said. “Nursing staff must constantly hover in and out of the room to check the bedside unit.”
In addition to hospital foundation funding and the donation from the regional district, the B.C Gaming Commission’s Direct Charitable Access and the Northern Lights Bingo Association also donated funds for the machine.
“The hospital foundation is sincerely grateful to the funds provided for this life saving equipment,” Cleve said.
Presently hospital staff is being trained on the new system.