By Jenn Watt

New equipment at both the Minden and Haliburton sites of Haliburton Highlands Health Services is helping health professionals more easily take care of patients.

On Feb. 14 a day dedicated to the heart members of the HHHS Foundation and the media were invited to see the new cardiac telemetry and cardiographs in the emergency department and acute care at the Haliburton hospital paid for through donations from the public.

“It’s really state of the art and it’s really nice in a smaller facility to have equipment like that that we can use that gives us the best patient care that we can [offer]” said Karen Harris a registered nurse at HHHS.

Central monitors at the nurse’s station show readings from all the patients at once and include interactive displays that allow for better monitoring.

“What you see here is all our different monitors that are at the various bedsides all consolidated into one screen. So for each of these patients they have a monitor at the bedside so you can also [have] all the same functionality really” said Dr. Diane Duff chief nurse executive and VP clinical services.

Portable telemetry units allow the patients to move around while they’re being monitored and assist health professionals in understanding how the patient’s daily activities affect their heart.

Dr. Duff said the new equipment came at just the right moment. Days before it was to be installed the old system began making a grinding noise which got louder and noisier as time progressed.

“Before [the new equipment] we used to have just the cardiac monitors in a couple of our rooms and so if we had people that had to be monitored then we had to switch around beds to make sure that the patients were being monitored whereas now any of the beds anywhere on our unit can do cardiac monitoring. So this is such a versatile system” she said.

The HHHS Foundation raised $525000 for the cardiac telemetry equipment which has been installed at the Minden and Haliburton emergency departments and in the acute department. An additional $45000 was raised for the cardiographs which are available at both the Minden and Haliburton emergency departments.

In addition to the tour on Friday the HHHS Foundation held their final three draws in their annual Cash for Care lottery with one lucky winner on-site to hear his name called out.

Michael LeBlanc the cook at HHHS was in the lobby of the Haliburton site watching the tickets being drawn when his was pulled from the drum for the $20000 prize.

LeBlanc has worked for HHHS for five years and said he buys tickets each year. He said winning felt very nice but was unable to answer more interview questions as he said he needed to go serve lunch.

The $1000 winner was Doris Pierson of Eagle Lake and the $2000 prize went to George Milne of Oshawa.