Dennis Young, chair of the Terry McKerrow Cat Scan Fund, presented a cheque for $140,000 to a grateful Mathlide Bazinet, chair of the Nipissing Serenity Hospice, Monday.
“We think it’s important to have a hospice in the community of North Bay,” said Young, standing by the access to the future hospice grounds.
In keeping with the spirit of the McKerrow fund, the donation is earmarked to purchase equipment for the soon-to-be under construction hospice.
Young explained that the dissolution of the fund has meant some large donations to area causes, including a pledge to the North Bay Regional Health Centre. “After 25 years, we’ve decided to wrap the Terry McKerrow Cat Scan Fund up. There was about $500,000 left in the fund to be divided up. We are going to create an endowment fund for $400,000 at the hospital, and the remaining $140,000 we decided to give to the hospice.”
Bazinet said after the cheque presentation that the hospice is ready to be built. She indicated that although the group has secured financing from the Caisse Populaire so that work can get started, they are still waiting for funding decisions from the provincial government’s Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation (NOHFC). The hospice group had applied for a grant totalling $1.5 million.
“We are very optimistic that we will be treated fairly in our region,” said Bazinet. “The NOHFC has already awarded $2.3 million to the Sault Ste. Marie hospice and we understand that they will be donating another $1 million, for a total of $2 million to the Sudbury hospice.”
Bazinet adds that if all goes according to plan, the hospice will begin accepting patients next summer.
