The regional hospital’s operating room is getting a boost through donations of more than $100,000.
The Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation announced Tuesday the donations will allow for new and updated equipment in the facility’s operating room, which sees more than 15,000 cases per year
The new equipment, which was obtained through money raised by the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation, includes five new anesthesia care machines as well as a new skin graft mesher and a transurethral resection of the prostate instrument set.
“These pieces of equipment are very important because they allow us to provide the next level of advanced level of state of the art care to the patients of Thunder Bay and region,” chief of surgery Dr. Mark Thibert said.
“Each of those pieces of equipment permit advances in care that improve the outcomes for the patients, diminish lengths of stay and decrease any of the potential risks of the procedures involved.”
The new resources have both specialized and wide-reaching purposes.
The $8,000 prostate instrument set allows doctors to relieve moderate to severe urinary symptoms caused by a benign enlarged prostate. The $5,000 skin graft mesher provides surgical staff with a much more efficient and effective process to treat infection, wounds, burns or other trauma.
The five anesthesia care machines, which totalled to cost nearly $97,000, can be used with nearly every procedure.
Dr. Ian Dobson, chief of anesthesia, said advances in technology over the past decade allows the machines to do more.
“The machines are fully electronic. They’re fully integrated so they talk to each other. They have all the latest technology in terms of alarms and they have a gas sparing agent which allows us to give the exact amount of anesthetic gas we need,” Dobson said.
The enhanced capabilities of the new equipment allow hospital staff to perform more procedures at home, rather than making patients travel.
“The monitoring of patients has improved substantially. We can now manage much sicker patients than we could previously,” Dobson said.
“Patients, who, in the past, probably weren’t candidates for a surgery can now have surgery safely.”
That’s especially important considering how many patients the hospital treats.
“We do treat a very large spectrum of care, most a very world-class level,” Thibert said, adding patient volumes at the regional hospital are equal to or surpass many other facilities in Ontario.
“A large part of that has to do with our geography and remoteness. We have a very large volume which requires a supportive instrumentation.”
