By Kayla Bruch

Three new machines at Prince Albert’s hospital could save lives

Nov 27, 2014 | 8:25 PM

The intensive care unit (ICU) at Prince Albert’s Victoria Hospital has already been putting its new life-saving medical equipment to use.

“It certainly makes a big difference and I think about any of my loved ones if they were to suffer a cardiac arrest,” said Betty Skarpinsky, nurse manager for the unit.

Northridge Developments held the Goodwill House campaign to raise money for specialized medical equipment for the hospital. Its sub-traders and suppliers also participated. Northridge began raising money in the spring of 2013 and wrapped up those efforts in the fall.

“We felt that the Victoria Hospital was just a great need here for the community, “said Northridge general manager Stephen Pollock. “Hospitals are just someplace that can always use extra equipment.”

The fundraiser brought in a total of $70,000. Skarpinsky said the machines really aid in providing the best care to patients.

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“We’ve been able to do, of course, many life-saving procedures for our patients, but what we’ve been able to add to it now is three machines.”

Nurses who work in the unit have already used one of the three new specialized machines. Joanne Lajeunesse is a critical-care educator in the ICU. She said the staff found the triple-pump machine very easy to use.

“We love it; we have been using it daily,” Lajeunesse said.

Skarpinsky said there are three-triple pump machines in the hospital. One thing that separates them from other machines is they can be used on every patient.

“It’s an IV (intravenous) pump that is very compact and allows us to run three separate infusions,” she said.

This pump is what they call a smart pump. “We can dial in the medication we’re giving and it’ll figure out what’s the proper dose and how fast we need to run it,” she said.

Lajeunesse said these machines not only help staff do their jobs to the best of their ability, they also provide safer care for patients.

The wave form capnography machine assesses and treats patients through a throat tube, or a blind insertion airway device. 

“The capnography machine will ensure that we’re in the right place when we’re intubating our patients and ventilating them, providing them with oxygen and making their chances of successful recovery better,” said Skarpinsky.

Skarpinsky said this machine will also monitor how effective CPR is on the patient.

According to Skarpinsky, there are nine capnography machines, but there is only one hypothermia machine.

“If we get hypothermic patients, which we do get a lot of because we are so far north, and we go down to -30 [degrees C], this machine can help us too, to safely re-warm our people and so that they can be viable and hopefully not lose any limbs or anything else like that.”

Pollock said they enjoyed working with the hospital’s foundation so much they are planning to host another fundraiser for new machines.

“They were great to work with and part of our commitment with them was to do some more of these types of fundraising campaigns to help provide more equipment for the hospital,” he said.

kbruch@panow.com

On Twitter:@princealbertnow