Peterborough moms raising cash for hospital’s smallest patients

Peterborough’s hospital needs new equipment for some of its smallest patients.

“Everything from breathing apparatus, to incubators, to vital technology and equipment that literally saves lives,” said PRHC Foundation president Lesley Heighway.

The foundation is raising more than $1 million for equipment for PRHC’s maternity and neonatal intensive care units.

High on the list of needed equipment are electronic fetal heart monitors, which Heighway said cost about $30,000 apiece.

“There are 12 that need funding,” she said. “The equipment we have currently is well past its useful life.”

A local group of mothers is stepping in to help the hospital raise the funds it needs. Dubbing themselves “Mombassadors,” the group is holding a fundraiser on May 10 at Aria for the hospital.

One of the organizers, Sarah MacDougall Perrin, said she’s had first-hand experience with the equipment the hospital needs when her son was born almost 10 months ago.

“We knew something was seriously wrong when his heart rate, that we could hear, we could hear the ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum, it was rapidly decelerating,” she said.

A fetal heart rate monitor caught the slowing of Weston’s heart. MacDougall Perrin said doctors and nurses acted quickly to deliver Weston safely.

She walked out of the hospital a few days later with a healthy baby.

“It was really quick, really traumatic, but with a really happy ending for us,” she said.

Erin Marshall said the “Ladies Night” event on May 10 is for any woman in the region who wants to contribute to PRHC.

The goal is to raise enough cash to buy at least one new fetal heart monitor.

“We want any woman who has any connection to come and celebrate what we’re doing,” she said. “The mission is going to be the most fun part.”