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NORTH BAY, Ont. — The North Bay Regional Health Centre Foundation gratefully received important funding that will go toward the health and care of premature babies.
The Sandra Schmirler Foundation presented a $20,000 cheque to the NBRHCF before Saturday night's semi-final draw at the Pinty's Grand Slam of Curling Boost National 2022 at Memorial Gardens.
Sandra Schmirler, a multiple national, world and Olympic champion, passed away in 2000 from cancer at age 36 but her legacy lives on through the foundation.
Tammy Morison is president and CEO of the NBRHCF and says the money will enable premature babies once treated at the hospital to be discharged closer to home.
"We're so grateful to have the support of these curling events. This is having a great impact on our community and our health care."
Chantal Gagne is a director at the health centre and says the donation will help purchase a retinal camera.
"This will enable us to take images of the retinas of premature infants who are at risk of blindness. This camera will allow our highly skilled nurses to take images at any time and will remove barriers for our babies to be brought back to North Bay when they're born out of town. And, this ensures we're always ready to accept newborn babies, and [not] having these images doesn't get in the way of them coming closer to home."
She says early detection is key.
"They need a series of retinal images and when they're born prematurely, it's really important we have the technology in-house to do it at the regional health centre."
Sharon Howson is with the Schmirler Foundation and says her own family understands the importance of this support, locally.
Howson's own son, Alec, was born eight weeks premature so she says she has seen for herself how this equipment can help.
"We've experienced first-hand the challenges of a premature birth, of having a baby born too sick. too soon, and too small. It's a lovely privilege to be here to represent the foundation and pass the cheque to our hospital and to make sure the babies have the equipment they need in order to stay healthy."
She says they were air-lifted out of North Bay very early and found it so hard to be away from home.
"It's great the foundation is donating to hospitals in remote areas in order to keep families as close to home as possible."
Howson says family was incredibly important to Schmirler and "her legacy is to contribute to families. It makes such a big difference that all children have the opportunity to become champions just like Sandra."
