This Year's Cause

Our fundraising focus for Visions 2009 is the Intensive Care Unit, helping our hospitals care for patients with life-threatening conditions. Intensive Care involves specialized facilities, complex medical equipment, and full monitoring systems. Both the Royal Jubilee Hospital and the Victoria General Hospital have intensive care units (ICUs) for adult patients who are gravely ill or severely injured and who likely would not survive without this type of intervention.

Intensive Care is generally one of the most expensive, technologically advanced, and resource-intensive areas of hospital care. This year's Visions event supports the purchase of six new ventilators that together cost $375,000.

A ventilator is a machine that assists with or provides all of the breathing for people who cannot breathe on their own. In the ICU, ventilators are frequently needed and provide life-saving intervention. The newest ventilators are lightweight, extremely sensitive, and designed to minimize adverse effects while maximizing patient comfort.