Having had two vascular surgeries performed within months of each other meant Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) patient Mike Leach faced double the risk, double the recovery time, and double the worry.

Today, Leach is a grateful patient who is sharing his healthcare story to support the PRHC Foundation’s $70 million campaign for world-class healthcare close to home — including by revolutionizing vascular care through the development of the region’s first state-of-the-art hybrid operating room (OR).

A priority for the PRHC Foundation’s Campaign for PRHC, the advanced surgical suite will allow specialized clinical teams to perform multiple open and minimally invasive operations on the same patient, on the same day and in the same room. This will result in fewer procedures, safer outcomes, faster recovery times, reduced patient wait times, and, ultimately, improved quality of care for patients like Leach.

“The hybrid OR is such an exciting advancement that will have a life-changing impact on the thousands of patients who rely on PRHC for their vascular care,” says PRHC Foundation president and CEO Lesley Heighway.

“When you’re facing serious, complex conditions that require multiple urgent surgeries, you can’t afford to have one, recover, and then have the next. Some patients are so ill that they don’t have that time and delays are life-threatening. A hybrid OR would allow experts to do both, or more, in the same surgical session. Less wait, less risk, shorter time in hospital, and shorter recovery all means less worry for patients and their loved ones and more time together.”

Having a hybrid OR available at PRHC would have allowed Leach to have both his surgeries at the same time when he faced his own vascular health crisis.

The Bowmanville resident’s healthcare journey began when he developed what he thought was a water blister from his new shoes along with leg cramps that he attributed to aging. When his right heel didn’t heal, Leach learned he had a diabetic ulcer and needed to have a PICC (peripherally inserted central catheter) line inserted to treat the infection. Because the ulcer was so severe and deep, he was at risk of losing his foot if the ulcer reached the bone.

VIDEO: “If PRHC had a hybrid OR, both of my surgeries could have been done in one day.”

While he was on the PICC line, Leach was limited in his mobility and was unable to travel to his job as an IT specialist in Peterborough or enjoy the things he usually did, like cooking, woodworking, gardening, and spending time with his wife and young adult son. After another diabetic ulcer on his left heel was punctured, it was determined he had less than 90 per cent blood flow to his legs.

Leach was taken into surgery at PRHC where the healthcare team put a stent in the blocked artery of his right leg to restore blood flow. After he had fully recovered from that procedure two months later, Leach had to return to PRHC for a second surgery where a medical balloon was inserted into an artery in his left leg.

While Leach says he had “complete and total confidence” in the surgeons and the rest of the team at PRHC and remained light-hearted and positive throughout both procedures, his wife was worried about the potential complications.

“Of course, it goes through your mind what happens if there are complications and they have to take the foot,” Leach admits. “No matter who you are, it’s going to play in the back of your mind. And it wasn’t just once — we went through it twice from two different operations.”

Even after the first surgery went smoothly, Leach and his family were still not at ease because they knew he would have to have a second surgery weeks later when he had recovered.

“It was the fact that I had to do this all over again,” he says. “I wasn’t thrilled because I’m worried again about complications, I’m worried about the recovery time, and I’m worried if I’m going to get an infection from this surgery that I didn’t get the first time.”

For Leach, having a cutting-edge hybrid OR at PRHC would have not only meant getting back to his regular life faster, but it also would have meant less anxiety for himself and his family.

“With a hybrid OR, you only have one stressful situation,” he says. “Everybody deals with it in their own way, but you only have one time to get stressed out. I had two critical surgeries, two stresses, and two recoveries.”

“When I heard that the Foundation was going to help create a hybrid OR, I was surprised that more hospitals actually don’t have them,” Leach says. “This advancement could save someone’s life or save their limbs. Anything could have happened while I was waiting in the transition from one surgery to the other.”

PRHC’s regional vascular program serves a population greater than 600,000 including patients from Peterborough City and County, City of Kawartha Lakes, Northumberland County, the Haliburton Highlands, and the region of Durham. With four surgeons performing more than 1,000 vital vascular surgeries in two dedicated operating rooms per year, they are serving patient volumes equivalent to six surgeons.

“Not only will a hybrid OR mean that an individual patient will face less time waiting for their urgent procedures, but more patients will be able to get their care sooner because of the overall reduction in OR time needed for those same procedures,” says Heighway. “Vascular disease is on the rise and it’s the leading cause of preventable death and disability in Canada. A hybrid OR will be essential to meeting our regional demand and keeping that care close to home.”

Prior to his vascular surgeries, Leach had received care in hospitals in Toronto and Oshawa but says the treatment at PRHC was unmatched. He is grateful there was somewhere close to home and work where he could get world-class health care.

“The hospital gives you back a quality of life,” he says. “I can now stand in the kitchen and cook and I can do woodworking if I want to. The hybrid OR would have made that happen even faster.”

Before receiving care from PRHC, Leach was unaware the government doesn’t fund equipment and technology for hospitals and just how essential community donors are to the regional hospital.

“If someone goes to the hospital and gets magnificent care, they can go home and spend time with their kids and grandkids and their quality of life can be extended,” he says. “Putting money into a donation for the hospital was an easy decision. I felt good knowing my contribution will go towards a hybrid OR and its years of helping lots of people.”

For her part, Heighway appreciates Leach’s enthusiastic support of the PRHC Foundation’s commitment to bring a hybrid OR to PRHC.

“Mike is a regional patient who has experienced firsthand what it’s like to have to travel to Toronto for care versus having world-class care closer to home at PRHC,” says Heighway. “He’s thankful for that exceptional care, but he also knows what it would have meant to have his multiple procedures done at once in a hybrid OR, and he wants that for the next person.”

“We’re grateful that he’s sharing his patient story and support of the Campaign for PRHC to inspire others and help them understand the difference their donation will make to patients like him and their loved ones.”

To learn more about bringing a hybrid operating room to PRHC and to make a donation, visit the PRHC Foundation website at prhcfoundation.ca or call 705-876-5000.

This branded editorial was created in partnership with the Peterborough Regional Health Centre Foundation. If your organization or business is interested in a branded editorial, contact us.

Inadequate income, a conflict with a spouse or partner, and a dispute with a landlord were the top three reasons people were living without housing in 2024, according to a recent report.

Along with rising chronic homelessness, these are some of the findings of the United Way Peterborough & District’s 2024 point-in-time count of people experiencing homelessness in the community. The last report of this kind was conducted in 2021.

“This biannual snapshot of who is unhoused in our community is critical in understanding the actions and policies that are needed to address homelessness in Peterborough,” said United Way CEO Jim Russell in a media release announcing the report.

A point-in-time count is intended to provide a snapshot of who is experiencing homelessness in a community during a specific period. For the 2024 count, 343 surveys were conducted in a 24-hour period on November 18 and 19, 2024, as well as an extended survey period which ran until the afternoon of November 21.

The 2024 point-in-time count was conducted by a trained team of surveyors — many of whom had lived experience of being unhoused — along with shelter staff and outreach workers from different agencies.

Individuals and families who were counted included those who were staying in emergency shelters, transitional housing, outdoors in tents, makeshift shelters, or in other public areas, and those who identified as unhoused when accessing community services where surveyors had been stationed.

According to the report, point-in-time counts conducted over successive years can be used to track a community’s progress in reducing homelessness. However, there are some limitations to the methodology, which can result in undercounting because of the difficulty in locating people who are living unhoused.

One of the key findings of the 32-page report is that 27 per cent of the people who were surveyed are Indigenous — which is over five times higher than the representation of Indigenous people in the city’s general population. The report states that housing instability is an inequity that Indigenous people face as a consequence of colonialism.

“There is a growing overrepresentation of Indigenous people experiencing homelessness in the City of Peterborough,” the report states. “People that are currently experiencing homelessness in Peterborough is much higher than the five per cent of Indigenous people in Peterborough’s total population.”

Other findings of the report involve gender, age, education, and health conditions.

Over 40 per cent of those surveyed were white heterosexual men, with 78 per cent of those surveyed being adults aged 25 to 54 and eight per cent 65 or older — with the number of seniors experiencing homelessness increasing.

While only four per cent of those surveyed were youth aged 16 to 24, the report notes that many young people fall into “hidden homelessness” and may not have been reached by surveyors.

Although 39 per cent of people surveyed had no high school diploma, 18 per cent had graduated post-secondary school with a degree, with the report speculating that the burden of debt for post-secondary education may be a factor in the economic situations of those who are highly educated but living unhoused.

Of those surveyed, 43 per cent reported having a physical illness, 49 per cent reported having a physical disability, and 48 per cent reported having difficulty with seeing or hearing.

In addition, 82 per cent reported a substance use condition and 72 per cent identified as having a mental health condition, while 47 per cent reported having a learning or cognitive limitation — particularly among the small group of young people who were surveyed.

“Supportive housing is required to meet the needs of those with health conditions, including evidence-based harm reduction approaches for those who use substances,” the report recommends.

Another key finding of the report is an increase in chronic homelessness, with almost 80 per cent of those surveyed being homeless for over six months in the previous 12 months — a rise of 20 per cent from 2016 — and 70 per cent reported being homeless for about half or more of the previous three years.

The report also addresses a common misconception about unhoused people in Peterborough: that most have no connection to the city and have recently migrated from other areas for the purpose of accessing social services.

“While this does happen in very few cases, the vast majority of people have either always lived here or, if they did migrate here, they generally have roots in Peterborough,” the report points out, noting that 34 per cent have always lived in Peterborough and that 65 per cent have been in the city for anywhere from five to 51 years.

“By far the most common reason for coming to Peterborough is to be with family, friends, or to return to their hometown,” the report adds.

The report states that, while there have been some successes in addressing the homelessness crisis in Peterborough such as the modular bridge housing community on Wolfe Street and One City Peterborough’s low-barrier shelter at Trinity Community Centre, “we need long-term solutions that prevent people from falling into homelessness in the first place.”

There are many barriers that unhoused people face when attempting to find appropriate rental housing, according to the report, including perceived housing readiness (landlords may discriminate against people who struggle with access to showers, clothing, and laundry facilities), high health needs, no access to phone or internet, no access to transportation, no references, no or low credit ratings, limited income or lack of employment, no bank account, and no government-issued identification.

“Homelessness, and poverty more broadly, is not something individuals can put behind them by simply pulling themselves up by their bootstraps,” the report concludes. “These are system-level problems, and they require system-level solutions based on principles of both economic justice and housing justice.”

This was the fourth nationally coordinated point-in-time county for the United Way Peterborough and District, along with its partners. Funding for the count was provided through a grant from the Government of Canada’s Reaching Home: Canada’s Homelessness Strategy, a community-based program aimed at preventing and reducing homelessness across Canada. This program provides funding to communities to help them address their local homelessness needs.

For a copy of the full 2024 point-in-time count report, visit the United Way Peterborough & District’s website at www.uwpeterborough.ca/reports/.

Peterborough mayor Jeff Leal has shared a letter he received last Friday (October 24) from Ontario’s environment minister about GE Vernova’s proposed demolition of 26 vacant buildings at the General Electric factory complex in downtown Peterborough, and has issued a statement in response to the letter.

In the letter to the mayor, Todd McCarthy states that “The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks recognizes the importance of this matter to Peterborough City Council, local residents and others who have a strong interest in protecting community health and the environment.”

“The ministry has not yet received a detailed demolition plan from GE Vernova. Once received, staff will carefully review the proposed plans and provide technical comments and recommendations to ensure the demolition process meets provincial regulatory requirements and protects public health and the environment.”

“The ministry will continue to offer its participation in technical discussions and remains open to collaboration with the City of Peterborough, community members and agencies,” McCarthy adds. “Transparency and public confidence are key priorities throughout this process.”

The mayor had written to the minister on October 15, following a 6-5 vote at city council the previous evening not to pursue a heritage designation for the buildings being proposed for demolition, effectively delisting the buildings from the city’s heritage register and clearing the way for GE Vernova to proceed.

At the meeting, city council heard from nine public delegations expressing concerns about the proposed demolition, because of known contamination of the industrial site with toxic hazardous substances over the past 125 years and the impact of a demolition on the safety of the surrounding residential neighbourhoods.

During the meeting, city staff advised council that the municipality has no authority to prevent the demolition, other than by declaring its intent to designate the buildings under the Ontario Heritage Act, and that the provincial government was responsible for regulating environmental impacts of the demolition.

In his October 15 letter to McCarthy, Leal said “the full weight of the Environmental Protection Act needs to be applied” because of the toxicity of the site, and said he would be “happy” to meet with the minister to discuss the issue.

In his response, McCarthy did not mention a meeting with the mayor. Instead, he said “Given the technical complexity, historical sensitivities and local knowledge surrounding this site, I encourage you, council members or city staff to contact David Bradley, Peterborough District Manager, with any questions or to arrange a meeting.”

In response to McCarthy’s letter, Leal issued a statement on Monday (October 27) that he is “very pleased that the Minister has responded so comprehensively, and in a manner that reflects the urgency and sensitivity of this issue for our community.”

The mayor added that the content of the letter “addresses the items that I would have expected to be raised during a meeting” and he will no longer be pursuing a meeting with the minister.

“The City will continue to communicate with the Ministry of the Environment on the environmental risk mitigation and management aspects of this matter, meeting as needed through the process to share information between the relevant agencies with their respective jurisdictions on behalf of the community,” Leal stated.

Five Counties Children’s Centre would not be here without the central role played by local Rotary Clubs. And fittingly, it’s in a roomful of Rotary Club members meeting in Peterborough in 1970 where our story begins.

The discussion that night in 1970 among Peterborough Rotarians focused on “a suitable venture” by which to mark the 50th anniversary of the club’s founding.

According to the club’s centennial book released in 2021 (meticulously researched and written by Bruce and Frances Gravel), the Rotarians settled on this venture: “the establishment of a children’s care centre” — which became Five Counties.

Some Rotarians had a personal interest in this project, including club members who had children with a physical disability. Providing care closer to home stood to benefit them and other families of children with physical needs, who often had to travel to Toronto, Oshawa, or Kingston for treatment at that time.

But creating a “children’s care centre” to serve Peterborough and surrounding region also aligned with what local Rotarians were doing at the time.

Back then, local Rotary clubs were already funding recreation activities for children with physical disabilities, including swimming programs, a Saturday morning kids’ club, and a summer day camp called Camp Omigolly.

On March 21, 1972, Five Counties was officially incorporated, with Rotary Clubs in Peterborough, Port Hope, Campbellford, Cobourg, Fenelon Falls, Haliburton, Havelock, Lindsay and Minden pledging to support the venture.

The big ask was securing funding for a new building, which Rotarians — supported by families in the area, medical experts, and local leaders — were able to do the following year when the Ontario government signed on.

The original building plan for Five Counties, to be built on Dutton Road in the north end of Peterborough on a parcel of land donated by the City of Peterborough, was based on the design of a similar centre in St. Catharines.

The initial plan for Five Counties included a children’s treatment wing, day care, and swimming pool to be built at a total cost of $920,000. To save money, the pool was deferred (and ultimately never built), shaving $200,000 off the price tag.

The Ontario Ministry of Health and the Ontario Society for Crippled Children (the term used at the time) committed to providing approximately 80 per cent of the building costs, leaving the balance of $148,000 to be raised locally.

Each of the nine Rotary Clubs pledged money to the initiative. For example, the Rotary Club of Peterborough contributed $25,000, while the smaller Rotary Club of Campbellford donated $10,000.

“Contributing the initial $10,000 would have been quite the feat for the Rotary Club at the time,” notes Dave Sharp, secretary of the Campbellford Rotary Club. “It is obvious that the club membership (at the time) understood the need to help get (Five Counties) started, despite having a limited number of patients from our immediate area.”

Club members were driven to help in other ways. With local fundraising successful, the “new” Five Counties opened its doors in Peterborough in 1975.

In those early days, Rotarians around the region — including in Campbellford, Lindsay, and Haliburton — still took an interest, by driving children and families to treatment appointments in Peterborough if they couldn’t get there themselves.

“That is what community organizations do — take care of those in need,” Sharp adds.

Over the years, local Rotary Clubs continued to financially support Five Counties as it expanded services to assist children and youth with physical, developmental and communication needs.

For example, the Rotary Club of Peterborough still holds the annual Fore the Kids golf tournament in support of Five Counties, building on the $353,003 it has contributed in total to the Centre since it opened its doors 50 years ago.

As Five Counties opened new Centre sites in Lindsay, Haliburton County, Campbellford and Cobourg to better serve kids and youth in these areas, Rotary was also there to help.

When Five Counties relocated to its current Division Street location in Cobourg, the three local Rotary clubs — Cobourg, Port Hope, and Northumberland Sunrise — pitched in to buy a special lift for the new facility.

The connection to Five Counties was personal in many ways, according to Denise O’Brien, past president of the Rotary Club of Northumberland Sunrise, who calls the Centre “an essential service in our community to support the wellbeing of children and their families.”

Denise relates the story of another Rotary Club member, Rhonda, whose son was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and how Five Counties became “the beacon of support” the family needed.

As Denise tells it, Rhonda credits Five Counties for showing her family “what caring, professional, devoted staff can collectively do to make a huge — and I mean huge — impact on the lives of those with a disability and their family. The team allowed our son to be the very best version of himself… Five Counties holds a special place in our hearts.”

At Five Counties, the feeling is reciprocated, as the Centre would not be here without the vision and support of local Rotarians, past and present.

In their centennial book marking 100 years of Rotary Clubs in Peterborough, the Gravels note the establishment of Five Counties “was a worthy monument to the activities of Rotary during the decade of the ’70s.”

It could be argued that Rotary’s “worthy monument” is a legacy that lives on to this day. It’s evident in the thousands of children, youth, and their families who were assisted by Five Counties over five decades, as well as the many more who stand to benefit from our services in the years to come.

Taking care of children is hard work and local parents feel isolated and overwhelmed, according to a recent study conducted by the Research for Social Change Lab (RSCL) at Trent University in Peterborough in partnership with Lakelands Public Health.

Last Tuesday (October 21), RSCL released Parenting Matters in Peterborough, the final report of the group’s “In Their Own Words: Parenting Work in Nogojiwanong/Peterborough” research study.

The report highlights the challenges that area parents face while raising children and provides evidence-based recommendations aimed at improving family wellbeing.

The report’s lead author, Trent University researcher Dr. Mary Anne Martin, shared her thoughts with kawarthaNOW about the most telling discovery findings of the report.

“We heard that parents are working really hard, but without adequate incomes, affordable child care, and accessible primary health care, they remain overwhelmed in trying to provide the safe, stable and nurturing environments that children need,” Dr. Martin said.

Drawing on more than 560 survey responses and the insights of 57 focus group participants, the research study set out to capture the realities of parenting in Peterborough. The vast majority of participants identified as women, despite targeted attempts by the researchers to encourage the participation of men in the focus groups.

The researchers gained insights into what families need, and the report offers an extensive set of recommendations for how the community can help support parents.

According to the report, while parenting is essential work that shapes children, families, and communities, it is often undervalued and unsupported. Parents in the community are working hard to keep themselves and their families well, but that not be enough to ensure the wellbeing of children.

Dr. Martin highlighted some of the systemic challenges parents face, including the high cost of living, issues with access to child care, and barriers to services such as primary health care.

Ultimately, parents are constantly stressed.

“In the survey, 51 per cent of parents reported they always or often felt stressed over the last six months,” said RSCL director Dr. Naomi Nichols in a media release announcing the report. “But parents also told us what they need to thrive. Their voices reveal the real conditions of parenting work in our city and the opportunities for positive change.”

Dr. Thomas Piggott, medical officer of health and CEO of Lakelands Public Health, said the findings illustrate the need for a collaborative community response to the issue of overwhelmed parents.

“Helping parents effectively requires cross-sector collaboration and upstream solutions,” Dr. Piggott said in a statement. “When communities, schools, health and social services, and government work together, we can reduce stress, build stronger families, and help children grow up healthy and safe.”

The report includes voices from parents in the City of Peterborough, Peterborough County, Curve Lake First Nation, and Hiawatha First Nation. A parent is defined as anyone who is a primary caregiver for a child, and a family “includes the breadth and diversity of household compositions that form structures of caregiving for a child.”

According to the report, the events, environments, and relationships that people experience, especially early in life when their brains and bodies are developing, can have a profound impact on their health and wellbeing over their lifetime.

“Both episodic and ongoing adverse experiences can cause chronic stress that keeps children’s nervous systems activated and unable to recover, potentially having serious impacts on how their bodies and brains develop,” the report states.

“As important people in children’s lives, parents and caregivers have the opportunity to interrupt the effects of adversity on children and promote resilience in their lives. To do this well, parents themselves need to be supported. While much is known about the impacts that children’s homes, communities, and society generally can have on their experiences of adversity and resilience, little empirical knowledge has been available regarding the experiences of parents, and more specifically, those in Peterborough.”

The study set out to change that, and researchers collected information aimed at understanding who is parenting children, what everyday parenting work entails, the factors that make parenting work harder, the conditions that make parenting easier, and more.

The purpose of the report is “to encourage decision-makers to use our findings to develop policies and invest in interventions that support safe, stable, and nurturing developmental contexts for children” and “inform a more equitable system of supports for children and families,” the researchers noted.

Along with Dr. Martin, the report’s co-authors are Trent University professor Dr. Naomi Nichols and public health nurses Kate Dunford and Kara Koteles, with contributions from others. The full report is available at www.socialchangelab.ca/in-their-own-words-final-report.

Founded at Trent University by Dr. Nichols in 2021, RSCL is a community-engaged research collective that aims to mobilize university resources for social change. With community partners, RSCL designs and executes research projects to generate actionable knowledge and creative problem-solving around issues such as homelessness, social exclusion, and poverty.