File photo (image credit - CFJC Today)

By Michael Reeve

GIVING TUESDAY

RIH Foundation preparing to launch a new fundraising campaign

Dec 2, 2025 | 4:35 PM

KAMLOOPS — After a weekend stoked in commerce with Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday, comes a day spared for something much more virtuous. Giving Tuesday is when people come together in the spirit of generosity to give back to charities and causes ahead of the uber-commercialized holiday season to come. In Kamloops, the Royal Inland Hospital (RIH) Foundation is gearing up to launch a new campaign.

With the newly renovated emergency department at RIH nearing completion, the foundation is getting set to launch a new campaign, hoping to raise $25 million for healthcare innovation.

“In partnership with Interior Health, they are going to do all the replacement equipment, and we have a lot of equipment that is aging out. It needs to be replaced,” said RIH Foundation CEO Heidi Coleman. “And the foundation is going to work on innovation and new equipment.”

The foundation sees the new technology — including a hybrid operating room — as an avenue to support doctor retention and recruitment, insuring RIH stands up to other hospitals around Canada and further.

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“We have two new vascular surgeons here, so that is exciting and they are waiting for the new hybrid OR to open and that should be in 2026. And we have a new MRI and we are waiting on the new ERCP (endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography) suite and we would like to recruit some gastroenterologists for that,” said Coleman.

The foundation is also looking at training simulators for doctors and da Vinci robots which allow for more precision during minimally invasive surgeries.

“We know these da Vinci robots… have existed in Canada for a while and I know Kelowna has their brand new da Vinci robot. That is what surgeons want to use, they are trained on it, so if they are coming here, then they want to use it,” said Coleman.

The official campaign will kick off in the new year, but prior to that, the PA Woodward Foundation will be matching donations for Giving Tuesday and throughout the holiday season up to $200,000.

“It’s an exciting time and we will reach out to the community because the community is always wonderful here — and it’s not just Kamloops, its all of our surrounding areas,” said Coleman. “The exciting thing about the Woodward’s Foundation donation is that $200,000 is going to support our hospitals rurally, so we have equipment for Williams Lake in there, Lillooet, Merritt and that is wonderful because we don’t just support Kamloops here.”

The new campaign is expected to run over a few years, with the foundation not expecting to reach the goal in 2026 alone.