Last Wednesday 124 golfers teed off at the Napanee Golf and Country Club in support of the Lennox and Addington County General Hospital Foundation.
Between registration fees and a silent auction, over $56,000 was raised at the tournament which will be put towards keeping health care close to home here in Lennox and Addington.
And while yes, taking a day off work to hit the golf course might not be the most daunting thing a person ever does, those that took part can take pride in knowing they contributed to a good cause. From humble beginnings to now 25 years later, the annual tournament has played a huge role in keeping the lights on at the small-town community gem of a hospital known as LACGH. In fact it’s done more than just keep the lights on, it’s helped to pay for life-saving equipment such as a state of the art CT scanner, expanded chemotherapy unit and a diagnostic imagining machine, just to name a few.
As many of Ontario’s small hospitals have faced threats of closures over the last decade or so, LACGH has found ways to not only survive, but continues to expand. Talking with people not from the area it can often be a surprise when they learn a community the size of Napanee even has a hospital, much less one as advanced LACGH.
Much of that is in large part due to both the efforts of the LACGH Foundation members working in partnership with the community to raise those extra dollars not covered by the provincial or federal government. The fact patients and visitors can park for free at LACGH can often be taken for granted. Take a trip to Belleville or Kingston-or just about any other hospital in North America, and there’s bound to be some sticker shock when it comes time to leave the lot. One stat that this reporter loves to recite is how the most expensive part of having two daughters delivered at a hospital-one at Belleville General Hospital, the other at Kingston General Hospital-was the parking. As maligned as Canada’s healthcare system can be at times-and it’s far from perfect-it was nice not to be hit with a five figure bill just a few days after welcoming a child to the world. They’re pretty good at running up the bill on their own, but that’s a different story.
There will always be certain medical procedures or treatments that require trips out of town, be it Kingston, Ottawa or Toronto, but the more that can be done here at home, the better. The last thing a patient needs is to worry about not only the costs of travel, but actually physically getting to appointments when taking a two hour drive is the last thing they’d rather do.
For all the uncertainty surrounding healthcare at the moment, last week’s fundraiser was a feel good story. While everyone wants to avoid a hospital as much as possible it’s at least nice to know it’s there when it’s needed most.
-Adam Prudhomme