Where Your Money Goes

The right equipment is essential to delivering the best care. At BC Women’s Hospital & Health Centre, our equipment needs are even greater because of the special patients we treat.

Unlike most hospitals, we require different sizes and kinds of equipment because our patients range from premature newborns to mature adults. Often our equipment becomes obsolete due to advancements in medical technology. In some cases, equipment simply wears out.

As well as helping us to purchase life-saving equipment, your donations are used to support research and the many specialized programs at BC Women’s including:

The Access Clinic
Improving the lives of women with disabilities. We provide easy access to essential health services that disabled women may otherwise have difficulty obtaining, such as gynecological and breast screening.

The Asian Women’s Health Clinic
Offering B.C.’s Asian women unrivalled wellness education, including cervical and breast-cancer screening.

BC Women’s Milk Bank
270 baby’s lives were saved last year by feeding them from our Human Milk Bank – the only one in Canada.

Outreach
Programs which extend to the remote corners of the province, serving over 100 communities.

Osteofit
BC Women’s unique, community-based exercise and education program for osteoporosis sufferers. Women and men living with osteoporosis find relief from pain, gain confidence and regain their independence.

To view where your money goes please click here. For more information on the services and programs at BC Women’s, please click here.

This year’s top priorities:
Goals for the Excellence in Women’s & Girl’s Health Fund, 2010

Maternity Care Simulation Training Program

When the miracle of birth turns into a life-threatening situation, there’s no room for hesitation or error. You need a skilled team of maternity care specialists who function as a tight knit group, contributing their skills at the right time and in the right way. At BC Women’s, the safety of mom and baby are our biggest priority. That’s why we are creating a state-of-the-art maternity care simulation training program to educate current and new obstetrical and neonatal healthcare staff and physicians in the safe and effective management of crises during labour and birth.

This ground-breaking program will use simulators – realistic computerized models of a mom and a baby in utero – to give healthcare providers the opportunity to experience difficult obstetrical cases and emergency scenarios in a protected learning environment that does not put a ‘real’ mom and baby at risk.

To create the simulation training program, our doctors need state-of-the-art equipment and resources like the Gaumard Noelle Manikin S575, one of the most advanced obstetrical simulation manikins on the market today. This computerized, wireless model provides clinicians with the ability to practice dealing with a variety of obstetrical and neonatal crises. To complete the program, we also need other realistic anatomical and tactile models, monitoring software and audio-visual equipment and support to develop an effective curriculum for training.

High Resolution Ultrasound

BC Women's provides specialized care to the 'sickest of the sick' pregnant women and their unborn babies. No other hospital has the expertise, tools and resources to diagnose and treat expectant mothers with life-threatening health conditions in pregnancy like heart, kidney or neurological diseases or babies in utero who have heart, lung or other growth problems that puts their very existence at risk. Yet meeting the care needs of pregnant women with complex health conditions requires advanced equipment like high resolution ultrasound machines - state-of-the-art technology that allows our prenatal specialists to monitor the health of a baby in utero. These specialized ultrasounds use sound wave technology to create highly detailed 3 dimensional images of an unborn baby, much more detailed than a regular 2-D ultrasound a pregnant woman receives at local hospitals or clinics.

BC Women’s current ultrasound machines are aging and based on technology that is becoming rapidly obsolete. We need newer state-of-the-art models to give moms and babies the best care. Having advanced high resolution ultrasound equipment can make the difference between life and death for a mom and baby - that's because if our specialists detect a bladder, lung or heart problem early on in the pregnancy, often they have the expertise to perform miracles - like do surgery on a baby in utero and potentially fix the problem! For women carrying high risk pregnancies, an ultrasound machine is a miracle maker.

Obstetrical Central Monitoring System

Less than 100 years ago, thousands of women died each year in childbirth. Today, new technology and new medical practices mean an advanced maternity care centre like BC Women’s is ready for almost any complication. That’s because of the existence of innovative technology like OB-TV, a state-of-the-art central monitoring system, gives moms and babies the best chance possible for a healthy and safe birth.

OB-TV monitors the heart rate and health of babies in utero. Should a mom or baby’s heart rate drop suddenly, our doctors and nurses are immediately informed so they can intervene right away to ensure a good outcome. Access to modern, effective technology like this is vital for women carrying high-risk pregnancies. That’s why Women’s needs to expand its central monitoring system to all of its birthing rooms so that all moms and babies have access to this state-of-the-art care. We need your help to purchase new OB-TV equipment to provide the highest quality care to pregnant women and ensure B.C.’s babies have the best chance possible for a healthy and safe start in life.