Dauphin Health Care Auxiliary disbands

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This article was published 18/01/2022 (1523 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After more than 120 years, the Dauphin Health Care Auxiliary has folded. 

Citing difficulty in fundraising and finding new members, the volunteer group voted unanimously to dissolve at its final meeting last October. President Sharon Derhousoff said it has taken a few months to make the official announcement as the auxiliary has been working to officially close its operations. 

“COVID has definitely made it more difficult for us to fundraise and get new volunteers,” she said. 

Going through the records of the auxiliary, she said at one point they had more than 40 members. Even before the pandemic, they had been trying to recruit new volunteers. In recent years, they have barely had 25 members. There have been a few members who have been in the auxiliary for more than 40 years as well. Derhousoff said she had only been there for a little more than two years, most of those as president. 

With so few members and many subcommittees in the auxiliary, it was difficult to get representation. 

“Even while I was there, for lack of better words, the writing was on the wall,” she said. “We had many saying it wasn’t like it was years ago when we had more people volunteer,” she said. 

Shifting demographics is part of the issue. More people are working past age 65, traditionally the retirement age, meaning they have less time to volunteer. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has also made it harder to fundraise, but she cited the hospital’s gift shop being moved during reconstruction to the basement as another blow to the auxiliary’s finances, as well. 

The auxiliary also passed a motion at its last meeting that it would distribute its remaining funds, through the Dauphin Hospital Foundation, to purchases that will be split between the Dauphin Regional Health Centre and Dauphin Personal Care Home. That should be completed within the next two weeks, Derhousoff said. The gift shop they had in the hospital has been closed and the funds dispersed, as well as any items that were left were given to the Dauphin Friendship Centre for its Christmas hampers. 

There will be some parts of the auxiliary that will be ongoing. They were involved with several vending machines in the health centre. Funds from those machines will be split between the health centre and resident family council at the personal-care home. 

The auxiliary was originally known as the Dauphin Hospital Aid when it was initially organized in 1899. When it was formed, like many others, it was often an organization of the spouses of hospital staff to help their community, the hospital and the care home, Derhousoff said. Men and women would work together to fundraise, operate the gift shop and do community outreach. 

Derhousoff is still proud of what they have accomplished, though, even during the short time she has been there.

Over the decades, community support allowed the auxiliary to raise crucial funds for many projects, initiatives and causes. Every year, the health centre and personal care home would present a wish list and the auxiliary would pick one to help fund or give a general donation and the facility would use the money to pick something on their own. 

Among the most recent were $28,000 for the Apollo Pre-hospital patient simulator/mannequin, $40,372 for two birthing room scales for the health centre’s maternity unit, $30,510 for family room furniture for the health centre’s palliative care unit, $6,226 to refurbish the health centre’s psychiatric care unit, $19,486 to purchase six dialysis treatment chairs, $24,528 for various equipment in the personal care home’s family room and $20,000 for the health centre to purchase acute care hospital beds, as well as many more. 

The auxiliary also provided contributions toward initiatives like the Personal Care Home Residents Christmas Dinner, a Dauphin Regional Comprehensive Secondary School student bursary to graduates entering the medical field, a welcome gift to the health centre’s new year’s baby, Meals on Wheels gift meals and delivery in the spring and fall, annual Christmas flowers to Dauphin Personal Care Home residents and health centre patients, donations to the Dauphin Friendship Centre, canvassing for CNIB, selling daffodils for the Canadian Cancer Society and providing student employment at the gift shop. 

If another group wishes to form and take over as an auxiliary or volunteer group to work with the hospital, Derhousoff said that could be a possibility. 

“Whatever reality looks like after COVID runs its course, there could be a chance for someone else to come in and do that,” she said. “They will have to start from scratch, though, and they will have to find a new way of doing things, fundraising and working with the community. I just hope they take our principles and apply them to whatever they do.” 

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