Lakeshore raises $40K for cancer patient care with 1st annual Dragon Boat Race

The Lakeshore General Hospital Foundation held its first annual Dragon Boat Race on Saturday.

The more than $40,000 raised went to the West Island hospital’s oncology clinic.

CityNews spoke to several nurses who took part in Saturday’s event.

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Elisa Leo, oncology nurse

The support we received, it was humbling. I have to be honest with you, we didn’t think that we would get this much support from the people around us and from the community.

We’re such a great team at work that, you know, I was sure we could pull this off.

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Josie El-Kahi, oncology pivot nurse

We all feel like we’re each other’s family, really, at the oncology clinic. And what better way to do something all together outside as a group where we could meet our real families at the same time.

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Lisa-Marie Fitzwilliam, oncology assistant head nurse

Sometimes on difficult days, it really does feel like we make magic happen. We really work hard to come together as a team to pull out all the stops, to really support our patients and their families in the best way. And sometimes it’s at the last possible hour. So something colourful, something fun. We love laughing and having fun together at work and really making the mood as light as possible for ourselves and for our patients of course as well. And so it just felt like that colourful, mystical creature that kind of represents that for us.

You know, we see these patients day in and day out. Sometimes they spend entire days, sometimes entire weeks with us. And so just being able to make them feel like part of our family, which we work every day to do, and welcome them into an environment that can hopefully be adapted to just improve that quality of that experience that’s already so difficult.

Our patients and their families just got a little something extra that can maybe brighten that experience for them, make it just slightly easier. That’s our goal.

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Nathalie Kamel, managing director, Lakeshore General Hospital Foundation

This year, it’s our first annual Dragon Boat Race, and the idea stemmed actually from our oncology team, so from three of our nurses. (They) had this idea of trying to do an event post-COVID to really rally the teams, rally the hospital and rally the community to be able to support the Lakeshore Hospital and in particular, the oncology department.

Everything that we’re racing for today is to improve patient care. So to improve the experience of our patients. And essentially what that looks like is we’ve recently just purchased 12 new chemotherapy chairs, so that really will help with the comfort when they’re receiving their treatment. We are going to be painting our oncology department to really create a nice, more comfortable vibe in this space and to make sure that they really have a better experience when they’re going through something so difficult.