Pulling Together proves phenomenal success

On March 12th, the 1st Williamsburg BPSC (Scouts) hosted their fifth annual CHEO Carnival at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Williamsburg with proceeds benefitting the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) Therapeutic Clown program.

Scouts of all ages were busy making sure that all young visitors to their carnival had fun. Activities included face painting, dress-up, lots of game choices, popcorn and other yummy snacks, balloon animals and more.

According to Bonnie Omond, Otter Leader, the event’s origins began about six years ago when a boy in her Otter group watched the movie Patch Adams and subsequently suggested the group do something to help CHEO clowns.

While they weren’t able to make the idea a reality that year, Omond said they followed through the following year and have been doing it ever since.

The 1st Williamsburg BPSC (Baden-Powell Scouts) has members from all around the area. These traditional scouts have four groups ranging from ages five to late teens: Otters, Timberwolves, Explorers, and Senior Explorers. They meet on Mondays in Williamsburg.

As for the CHEO clowns, according to CHEO’s website, the program has been underway since 2001 and “Mollypenny works as a Therapeutic Clown to assist children, youth and their families cope with the stress of illness, injury and having to stay in the hospital.”

Reasoning behind the intitiative is simple: “Laughter and play are important aspects of physical, social and emotional development and recovery.”

“Room to room, visits provide healing laughter, a caring attitude, respect, encouragement, comedy, a little magic and red nose transplants! It is not necessarily about the traditional tricks of the trade such as fancy magic tools, but rather the energies that we all possess inside us like listening, intuition, sensitivity, emotional creativity, and more.”

“In her previous career, Mollypenny was a nurse who worked in the operating room (OR). She now works as a Therapeutic Clown, every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.”

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Although the full contract is not yet in place, South Dundas council has signed a letter of intent with R.J. Bourgon to allow work to start on the renovation of the former Morrisburg Collegiate Institute. 

The letter, approved by council at the Oct. 16 meeting, allows the contractor to start to mobilize on site, get their bonding in place and start the abatement process for the removal of the asbestos.

Council expects to have the contract ready for their approval at the next council meeting.

There have been a few changes to the scope of the $4 million project that are expected to result in some cost savings. They are now spelled out in an addendum being reviewed by the contractor. The addendum better defines the scope of the work to allow the contractor to better pinpoint the project cost and take into account any potential savings.

[…]

On November 16th, Cholly Boland, CEO for Winchester District Memorial Hospital (WDMH), spoke with reporters, giving updates on what is happening at the local hospital.

He told reporters that there’s “a lot of things we do that are worthy of note.”

“We are in the process of developing a research initiative.”

In addition, “we have academic programs and placement programs for everything possible,” said Boland. He reported talking to many students at the University of Ottawa as well as the Elizabeth Bruyere Institute.

He said WDMH has “nurses and doctors at every stage of their training. We have two medical residents.”

Boland is also trying to attract administration students to the hospital through visits to the University of Ottawa.

He said the “backbone” of the hospital is technology, where computerization and the full implementation of patient information will allow all departments to be “connected with one source of communication.”

Boland believes that the health professional’s “biggest tool is information.” 

Having a patient’s information all stored in one location that’s easily accessible to all health care professionals is “really invaluable. It’s really going to move us ahead.”

Boland also talked about working in conjunction with the Ottawa Hospital “to bring more services (like surgery) here and,” he continued, “helping Ottawa, which is a bottleneck” with lengthy emergency room wait times. 

The integration of Dundas Manor with the hospital is expected to be “concluded some time  early next year, subject to the government giving us final approval.”

As for the controversy over the purchase of Dundas Manor, Boland said, “the owners of Dundas Manor were looking for a buyer and they could have picked anyone. We’re a public organization. We’re all about health care.”

“None of the money will go to profit; it will all be reinvested.”

According to Boland, “the first driving force is  to provide quality healthcare.”

“We do some really progressive senior services care here.” 

[…]