The 11th annual Charlotte FM Radiothon in support of the Charlotte County Hospital Foundation was a huge success.

Residents came together to raise a total of $164,753 during the 12-hour fundraising event on Thursday.

The grand total included a $100,000 donation from the estate of a former patient in the palliative care unit.

Foundation officials hoped to raise $135,000 to purchase four new pieces of equipment, including a new ultrasound for the ER.

“Our existing one is coming to the end of its life and spare parts are getting hard to get for it, so that’s our number one item for this year and it has a value of around $66,000,” President Steve Backman told our newsroom ahead of the Radiothon.

Also on the list was a new instrument that warms and moisturizes air for respiratory therapy patients and a fluoroscopy stretcher for the new chronic pain management clinic.

Backman said they will also be able to purchase a new piece of equipment for the laboratory that analyzes blood smears.

“Today, if you were to get a blood smear, a technician would read it and if they saw something they were concerned about, they would call a taxi in Saint John, have the taxi come to the Charlotte County Hospital, but the slide on the taxi and send it back to the Saint John Regional to be read by a clinical pathologist,” he said.

“With this piece of equipment, it scans the slide, it does the first initial interpretation, and if there’s something that the software doesn’t like, it will email the slide to the clinical pathologist so it can be read right away.”

You can still make a donation through the foundation’s website by clicking here.