I Heart Delta Hospital: A gold medal destination
The following are community letters on their love for Delta Hospital. Between now and Feb. 28 the Delta Hospital Foundation is collecting stories and images about why people in the community love their hospital. For every piece submitted, MK Delta Lands Group will donate $100 to the Foundation. Thank you for your contributions throughout I Heart Delta Hospital. We are lucky to have access to an amazing hospital that is supported by a truly special community.
In January 2010, Vancouver was an Olympic city. From one end of the Lower Mainland to the other, across our local mountains, and all the way up the Sea to Sky to Whistler, our hearts were bursting with pride. We had collectively fought for this event, and now, in all their glory, the Olympic rings lit our lives.
I knew about it, and picked up on the buzz that had consumed us—even as I was quickly beginning to understand that the power and glory of the 2010 Olympics would completely pass me by. With ill-timed effrontery, my heart was bursting for a different reason. In January 2010, my heart, pumping blood through some plaque-clogged circuitry, decided that it was time to either be fixed or stop beating. The message was do it now, or prepare to die! I quickly made a “Seven-Minute, Do-Not-Pass-Go” trip to our hospital in Ladner. This was the place that could save my life!
The triage people know their stuff at our hospital, as do all of the hospital professionals. From the nurses, who spear the backs of our hands with I.V. needles; to smiling young things who trot out the warm blankets; to those who slide by with buckets and mops to keep the place clean; to the on-duty medics who have the uncanny ability to simultaneously look after everyone at the same time, they all know what to do, and nobody does it better.
My predicament wasn’t unique, and it was the Olympics that made it so. While most everyone knew that I likely needed a heart bypass or three, Vancouver General, where the surgery would happen, I was delayed in transferring there.
For whatever reason, I was destined to remain in the medical care of Delta Hospital for the next ten days, as my heart beat uncertainly beneath the sheets. But despite the uncertainty of my lot, I was able to not only observe a team of people functioning as one well-oiled unit, but on one joyous occasion, I was able to drag myself and my I.V. stand to an intensive-care window to watch the Olympic flame being carried aloft to our City Hall on its eventual way to wherever. For me, that was it for the 2010 Olympics.
Visitors and patients came and went during that waiting period. All of them observed that here, in this corner of our farmland community, we have a hospital that is up for any challenge, that its people know what they’re doing, that they care as much for the guy over there who mashed his finger with a hammer, as they do for the little of lady who fell and couldn’t get up – as they did for me, waiting for a bed downtown.
In due course, that bed came, and other caring professionals took over. Yes, my chest would be carefully opened, and old, clogged circuitry would be replaced. In time, the scars of a triple bypass would heal, and life lessons would have been learned.
The comfort of it all is that our hospital is there, and that its people, around the clock, are more than ready to serve us. We love our hospital, and we love those who keep on making it the gold-medal destination that it is.
Duncan Holmes
Tsawwassen
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