The mood was positive as 75 people packed the Council Chambers at Quinte West City Hall on Wednesday.
 
They were there to learn about what was described as a 'banner year' for the Trenton Memorial Hospital Foundation at the Board of Directors' Annual General Meeting.
 
Board Chair Darrell Smith announced the group's greatest achievement to date -- an earning of total revenue of just over $3 million in total revenue over the last twelve months, despite higher expenses because of the inclusion of a new Physician Recruitment and Retention program.
 
That figure highlighted a year where 75,000 patients entered Trenton Memorial Hospital.
 
Smith also mentioned a little over $2.6 million in grants last year for medical equipment and renovations that included a new CT Scan -- higher than the $1.8 million the hospital received in 2017-18.
 
Quinte West Mayor Jim Harrison was in attendance on Wednesday and thanked the Board of Directors for the work they had done, giving the hospital credit for finding effeciencies and appreciating the board's support of the program.
 
Smith stressed the generosity of donors has allowed his group a head start towards achieving this year's fundraising goal of $1.7 million.
 
"Just an incredibly generous community and they support us and they believe in the hospital and they believe what we're trying to accomplish here and they're worried about the health care of not only themselves, but their neighbours and family neighbours.", said Smith.  "So, we all have a vested interest in making sure that all the equipment and tools are there (at the hospital)."
 
He discussed what equipment $1.7 million raised over the next twelve months would go towards.
 
"The biggest portion of that going to the Intensive Care Unit at Belleville General Hospital."
 
Smith continued, "Always defibrillators --  the defibrillators they have inside the hospital itself are very different because they don't respond to the same things outside in the community.  These are actually for doctors and nurses and very critical situations inside of the ER and that." 
 
About $200,000 may go to Diagnostic Imaging and at least $150,000 would be spent on Information Technology and the Inpatient Unit.
 
Most of last year's funding for the foundation -- seventy percent -- came from individual and coporate gifts followed by nineteen percent raised through special events and those donations were described as 'extremely important' to the work the hospital does.
 
But Smith said as encouraging as 2018-19 was, the work continues to improve the quality of health care at TMH.
 
"We've got to get right back at it because the needs for what we're supporting from a hospital equipment perspective, it's only going to grow over time -- it's getting more and more expensive, the life expectancy of a lot of this equipment is not as long as it used to be."
 
Smith added, "We add more bells and whistles and technology, the lifespan of these pieces of equipment go down quite a bit and we'll have some other major initiatives we'll be funding over the next two to three years."