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Rimbey Hospital receives donation to purchase portable ultrasound machine

The new ultrasound machine will help expecting mothers and babies in emergency situations.
portableultrasoundmachinedonation
The Rimbey Hospital receives a cheque for $4,000 from the Sandra Schmirler Foundation for a new portable ultrasound machine. (Photo by Leah Bousfield)

The Rimbey Hospital will have a new portable ultrasound machine to help expecting mothers and babies in emergency situations. 

The Rimbey Hospital Legacy Committee received a recent donation of around $4,000 from the Sandra Schmirler Foundation to purchase the machine.

The money raised was from donations at the recent 2025 Alberta Women's Curling Championship Jan. 22-26, as well as bottles they took to the recycling. That donation, along with money from their other various events, Oktoberfest being the big one, will contribute to the new purchase.

Sandra Schmirler was the gold medal curler in the '88 Olympics, which were held in Alberta. When she started the foundation, it was to focus on neonatal intensive care and pediatric intensive care, helping babies born too soon, too small, too sick or too far away from proper care. The foundation has now donated over nine million dollars to over 109 different hospitals across Canada.

"The timing was perfect because we are looking to replace an old, outdated portable ultrasound machine. It's a great tool in the hospital world because it can be used with expecting mothers in order to determine the severity of their problems or illness, or if there's any issues with the pregnancy," said Patrick Rurka, one of the co-chairs of the Women's Championship and chair of the Rimbey Hospital Legacy Committee.

Rurka added that because the Rimbey Hospital is too small, it can be really hard to get maternity nurses to stay registered, as they have to deliver a certain amount of babies and because the population of Rimbey is smaller, it didn't have enough of a population to have enough babies born to keep up the registration.

A few years ago, it was decided that the Rimbey Hospital wouldn't deliver babies anymore unless it was an emergency situation.

The new portable ultrasound machine allows for it to be used in emergency situations at the bedside to do an assessment to see if the baby is in the right position, a possible burst appendix in older kids, etc.

The portable ultrasound machine will replace an older one they had at the hospital.

"We're in that kind of window at this hospital where everything was purchased brand new back in 2006 and 2009 when we were doing the full renovation, and now all of the pieces are slowly coming to end of life or they are no longer being able to be computer updated or they don't speak to the new computer system," said Rurka.

He added that they are trying to get it all tied back together to keep the best care in town.

They are hoping to receive the new ultrasound machine before the summer.

The next hospital event will be at the end of March for their annual donor breakfast, where they ask all of the business individuals to come out and join them for breakfast and update and ask them to bring their checkbooks to help them out.