The Weyburn & District Hospital Foundation held their Annual General Meeting Wednesday night in Weyburn and it was quite positive overall.

The end of year net assets were almost a million dollars higher than the previous year. For 2017 the net assets were $9,444,312 versus $8,368,784 in 2016.

Michael Hoffman has completed his term as Board Chair, he now serves as Past-Chair. Long time local physician Dr. Alain Lenferna has agreed to sit as the new Chair, Jeff Hayward agreed to sit as Vice-Chair, Melissa Swayze agreed to sit as treasurer and Dan Cugnet agreed to continue to sit as Secretary.

"I think the community's frustration is that the money is there and the hospital is not," said Dr. Lenferna. "It's really the economy, as soon as it turns around and the government isn't dealing with a deficit, I think we can look at budget dollars flowing for us."

The WDHF board and all the volunteers have raised the $20,000,000 necessary for the new hospital and are now approximately twenty per cent towards their goal of $10,000,000 for new equipment for the hospital. When they have the new equipment it will be used at the current facility until the new hospital has been completed.

"It was another positive year that we had and lots of good things are going on even though it's a little bit tough economically," said Michael Hoffman. "We've had lots of really good things going and we're still getting closer to our goal, up to $22,000,000 now."

The WDHF board consists of 12 dedicated individuals and they are always looking for new volunteers or fundraising projects. You can visit their website for more information.