Local donations could help keep Kingston’s hospitals at the forefront of patient care and innovation.
A group of anonymous “Angel Donors” have launched a donation-based gift matching challenge through the University Hospitals Kingston Foundation (UHKF)—an organization that supports Kingston’s hospitals through fundraising and investing initiatives. The challenge aims to double community contributions, up to $100,000, towards equipment, technology, and other priority needs at Kingston Health Sciences Centre (KHSC) and Providence Care.
‘Double Your Donation Matching Gift Challenge‘ was launched on Nov. 3 and will run until Dec. 31. The initiative is designed to widen public participation in hospital fundraising at a time when local healthcare organizations are facing rising demands, including rising patient volumes with more complex needs and new technology, according to the official media release on UHKF’s website.
KHSC, composed of Kingston General Hospital (KGH) and Hotel Dieu Hospital, and Providence Care, serves a population of roughly 500,000 people across southeastern Ontario. As Level III hospitals, they can take on more complex cases that smaller regional hospitals can’t, such as those involving cancer, neonatal, and intensive care.
“It’s not just Kingston. They [KHSC and Providence Care] serve all of southeastern Ontario from Cardinal to Brighton up to Bancroft and Smiths Falls,” Tom Zsolnay, CEO and president at UHKF, said in an interview with The Journal.
Across Ontario, hospitals continue to face longstanding funding gaps around equipment and capital needs, which aren’t fully covered through provincial operating budgets. In fact, the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) reports a funding deficit of $1.1 billion, needed to keep up with factors such as population growth and inflation.
While the province funds day-to-day operations, most equipment, from surgical tools to diagnostic machines, must be purchased through community funding. According to a 2022 framework released by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO), communities must cover 100 per cent of equipment costs, even when the province covers 70 per cent of capital construction costs.
“Government funding covers operations for hospitals, but it doesn’t cover a lot of the capital that they [KHSC and Providence Care] require,” Zsolnay added. The donated and matched funds will be unrestricted, allowing KHSC and Providence Care to direct them to where the need is highest.
Since the province funds little of the equipment used in patient care and research, donor-funded purchases remain essential. “They [KHSC] just acquired a new robot that was a roughly three-million-dollar cost and that was all funded by donors,” Zsolnay added.
For hospitals like KHSC and Providence Care—which spend around $99.5 million and $18.5 million, respectively, annually on ongoing needs—relying on Kingston’s local community for funding may help address growing patient care and infrastructure needs.
For Queen’s, the initiative has implications that extend beyond hospital infrastructure. “All the doctors that work at Kingston Health Sciences [Centre] are also faculty in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Queen’s, and they want to come to a place where they can do their research and have access to first-class equipment,” Zsolnay said.
Zsolnay added that investments in new equipment directly influence the University’s teaching and research environment, as donor-funded research equipment plays a key role in retention of Queen’s faculty, ultimately strengthening the training pipeline for students and the local level of available care.
“Having those funds means that they’re [Queen’s faculty and KHSC doctors] here, and it means that they get the equipment for their research. It means that, in turn, you get first-class care that typically you wouldn’t get in a community the size of Kingston,” Zsolnay said.
For UHKF and Kingston’s hospitals, and the Queen’s students and clinicians who rely on them, Zsolnay says these donations could help shape the standard of care in the region.
Tags
fundraising, KHSC, Providence Care, UHKF
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