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Foundation relies on donors to Have A Heart

If each Tri-City resident who got a letter last week from the Eagle Ridge Hospital Foundation donated a little more than a loonie to the Have A Heart campaign, the organization will have met its fundraising goal.

If each Tri-City resident who got a letter last week from the Eagle Ridge Hospital Foundation donated a little more than a loonie to the Have A Heart campaign, the organization will have met its fundraising goal.

That's the hope of David Clark, the foundation's executive director, who is overseeing the 14th annual drive to raise $32,500 to buy five new medication carts for the hospital on Guildford Way in Port Moody.

The carts will replace five aging machines and are designed with 15 individually locked drawers for patients' prescriptions. Clark said the mobile devices are a priority for the hospital to ensure nurses deliver the right medication to the right patient at the right time.

"We have targeted this as our number one priority," Clark said Thursday while showing a medication cart used in Centre 2B, the acute medical unit at ERH that handles patients recovering from life-threatening illnesses and in palliative care.

Last year, the foundation collected $38,000 through Have A Heart for operating room lights; the previous year, donations bought a hematology analyser.

The annual campaign that traditionally ends around Valentine's Day - and culminates with a tea for donors - is part of a larger fundraising push that this year has earmarked $525,000 worth of new equipment for the hospital, including eight new ceiling lifts (to assist nursing staff with moving patients on and off beds), mattresses, triple infusion pumps, gurneys and slave monitors (an ancillary computer used by surgeons to watch an operation).

The foundation has supplied ceiling lifts above each of the 75 beds in nearby Eagle Ridge Manor, a nursing home, and "we want to do the same above every bed at the hospital," Clark said, adding, "It's necessary. Nurses are worth protecting."

Operating costs for Have A Heart - including postage, printing and the Valentine's tea - are being paid by Westwood Honda in Port Moody.

Donors to the Have A Heart campaign will have their name written on a heart-shaped card that will be placed on a large red box in the hospital's lobby between Feb. 4 and March 20 and they will be invited to the thank-you tea Feb. 10 from 2 to 3:30 p.m. in the ParkLane Room. Tri-City residents who didn't get a letter and want to contribute can call 604-469-3128.