A significant donation was made to the Kincardine & Community Health Care Foundation by a local family in honour of a longtime area doctor.
The Nichol and Milne Family donated $1 million to the foundation's campaign to refurbish the laboratory and other parts of the hospital in honour of Dr. D.A.D. Milne, who moved to Kincardine in 1955 and practised in town until 1981.
Mark Womack, the Capital Campaign Manager for the project, says this gift will greatly help with all the work coming at the Kincardine Hospital.
"So we're looking at adding an MRI to our medical imaging department. The medical imaging department and the emergency department, as well as the laboratory, are going to triple in size," Womack explained.
Womack says that will ensure the Kincardine Hospital is a state of the art facility that attracts top medical talent, benefiting everyone in the area. The capital campaign has a goal of $18 million, and currently sits at just over $9.8 million raised.
The new laboratory will be a critical asset, and as Womack points out, labs are very important in terms of how a hospital functions, because that's where most diagnoses are confirmed.
"We're currently doing well over 300,000 procedures a year, and we're gonna approaching the 800-850,000 mark in terms of the number of lab procedures we'll be doing. So labs are significant in making sure that you're not only getting the right result but the right diagnoses," said Womack.
While gifts like the one from the Nichol/Milne Family are great, Womack says every little bit helps, and they're looking for any help the community can continue to offer.
"We'd love for people to go on our website at KincardineFoundation.ca and make a recurring monthly donation, make a one-time donation, spread our message on social media, come out and volunteer. Any way you can help, every little bit drives us closer to that $18 million," Womack said enthusiastically.
"My grandparents always loved and valued their time in Kincardine, and as a family who still has close ties to the area, we felt it was important to show our support to the campaign," said Neil Nicol, President of the Nicol Family Foundation, and grandson of Dr. and Mrs. Milne.
"Our father loved practicing in Kincardine, and our family still has deep connections to the area,” added Christine Milne. “The hospital was almost a second home for him.”
The new laboratory in Kincardine will be called the “Dr. D.A.D. Milne Laboratory” and the old on-call box, which features Dr. Milne, as well as many other well-known physicians, will be moved from near the emergency Department and preserved in the new laboratory space.