Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
As partners in healthcare, the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance Foundation (CKHAF) and its local hospital sites in Chatham and Wallaceburg work together to help the community thrive. The rural Ontario hospital is a vital pillar for a diverse population, and CKHAF is committed to providing a funding model that delivers for patients, staff, and community.
“It is about combining philanthropic vision, public sector mandate, and private sector capital to unlock new sources of sustainable funding and create long-term systemic change,” says Foundation President and CEO Christine Mitchell. The focus of the model is to support the hospital’s strategic plan for addressing varied and growing community healthcare needs.
Chatham-Kent Health Alliance (CKHA) provides clinical and community services in an environment of multiple healthcare challenges. These range from complex births to chronic disease, which is higher than in other parts of Ontario because of a greater number of senior citizens.
The CKHA’s five-year plan aims to navigate a pathway for care that supports such increasingly wide-ranging service requirements, workforce retention, and public funding challenges. Philanthropy has become fundamental to achieving sustainable success.
CKHA has identified a number of growing service needs over the next five years. These include support for an increase in mental health and addiction issues, impacted by factors including unemployment and homelessness. These will require a commitment to long-term help and an increase in budgets.
Among the innovative responses the Foundation has posited is the creation of transitional housing, to be used by patients without a home for rehabilitation following hospital treatment. Proposals to help fund such programs include the Foundation building a parking garage, which would provide consistent, reliable revenue used by the hospital to support its services.
In these ways, the Foundation maintains a strong link between the hospital and the broader community, by raising money through philanthropic ventures.
Working together, CKHA and its Foundation support the goals of SDG 3, which seeks to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for residents of all ages. The hospital and its charitable arm are also working to ensure fair and equal access to health systems, helping people live longer and better.
As Caen Suni, Vice-President of Clinical Operation at Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, explains, “Healthcare philanthropy is becoming more complex, more competitive, and increasingly essential to hospitals… We want to work with our partners to make the community healthier.”
Major donor giving of $10,000 or more means individuals or corporations can partner with CKHA to choose where their money goes.
