September 22, 2008/- The largest health care fundraising campaign in the history of Southeastern Ontario has reached a major milestone. The University Hospitals Kingston Foundation announced today during Tim Horton’s Smile Cookie week in Kingston that the Together We Can campaign has raised $55 million.

“This is a major accomplishment. When we launched the campaign in Springer Market Square in June we were at $52 million. Three months later we’re announcing that we’ve reached $55 million towards our $70 million goal,” said Ian Wilson, Campaign Chair of Together We Can. “Thousands of donors have heard our call for the community to come together behind our hospitals to change tomorrow’s health care, and this is the result.”

Publicly launched in June, the $70 million Together We Can campaign will raise money for hospital redevelopment, equipment, research, and staff education at all three university hospitals of Kingston – Hotel Dieu Hospital, Kingston General Hospital and Providence Care.

“We have made a great deal of progress in this campaign, but our work is not finished. There are still many people who have not yet heard about the benefits redevelopment will bring to our community and how we can make it happen if we work together. All the information they need about Together We Can is one phone call or mouse click away.” said Wilson.

The provincial government has agreed to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the redevelopment of the hospitals – the biggest change in health care in Southeastern Ontario in a generation. The province will pay for 90 per cent of the eligible redevelopment construction costs at the three hospitals, if the community will pay the remaining 10 per cent plus the cost of the equipment for those facilities.

Redevelopment will have an impact across the region. The three hospitals serve more than 500,000 people in Southeastern Ontario. About half of all visits to the hospitals come from people outside Kingston.