New million dollar campaign aims to help Moncton health care professionals

With a goal of supporting local doctors and keeping them in the Moncton-area, the Friends of the Moncton Hospital Foundation launched a major campaign this week.

It’s called Project Rebuild and it looks to raise $1.1 million that will go back into the local health care system.

"There's two main projects,” explained Greg King, the foundation’s president and CEO. “One is called Sim Labs, which is basically using smart mannequins in these labs that represent real world environments for health care professionals to brush up on their skills and practice real life, life and death situations.”

“The second one would be an endowment we would launch and it's going to be specifically for the retention, recruitment and education of health care staff,” he added. “And the first project that we're going to fund with that endowment would be funding three medical students while they're in school so they'll guarantee practicing in the Greater Moncton."

Breaking up the total amount, $850,000 is set to go towards equipment and technology for the two new Sim Labs. The remaining $250,000 would go towards the creation of the endowment program.

“It’s critical,” said King. “The primary access point for our resident is the family doctor and so many of us don’t have family doctors and it’s so important for us to have them and the Sim Lab project actually links back to that as well because when residents come here and they study here, 85 per cent of them stay in the region.”

King says every year the Friends of the Moncton Hospital Foundation increases it monetary goal, however, it is obtainable and critical in the community.