Wingham And District Hospital Foundation Celebrates Success Of The Caring Together Campaign

by Bob Montgomery

More than seventy people attended last night's celebration of the Wingham and District Hospital's successful Caring Together Campaign at the Columbus Centre in Wingham.

The campaign met its target of $3.6 million to bring a CT scanner to Wingham. Campaign Chair Mark Foxton says he believes a lot of the credit for the success of the campaign should go to Britespan Building Systems who kicked the campaign off with a gift of $1 million. Foxton says that was the largest donation ever received by the Wingham and District Hospital Foundation and it came at a critical time as the need for an on-site CT scanner became a top priority. “In my opinion, that just led to individuals, groups, community groups and businesses saying OK, we've got to support this.”

Foxton was joined on the campaign team by volunteers Dayana Deans, Andrew Kerr, Jenny Hogervorst, Shelley Reinhardt and Angela McPerson and he says that team deserves a lot of credit for the effort they put in. The success of the campaign says at lot about the people in the community. Foxton says the community and the doctors recognized the need for a CT scanner to enable them to provide better and faster care to their patients. He wasn't aware of the second benefit of having a CT scanner until it was brought to his attention by the doctors; that it's much easier to recruit doctors to a community if they know they'll have the equipment they need to do what they know needs to be done.

Foxton says they hope to have the CT scanner installed and running by May of 2025. For more information about the Wingham and District Hospital Foundation and the Caring Together Campaign, visit www.wdhfoundation.ca/ct-campaign.

Wingham and District Hospital's Caring Together Campaign Chair Mark Foxton