Kampe tours namesake tower

The new patient care tower at Penticton Regional Hospital wouldn’t be the same without local philanthropist David E. Kampe.

For one, the tower is named after Kampe, thanks to the Penticton businessman’s nearly $8 million in total donations to the hospital expansion project, through the South Okanagan Similkameen Medical Foundation.

On June 13, 2018, as the David E. Kampe Tower continued to take shape, Kampe had a private tour through the new tower.

“It was a tremendous feeling to be able to tour the new tower with hospital administration. It’s an honour to have my name on the tower,” said Kampe, who is 78. “I’m very excited about the David E. Kampe Tower and the health benefits it will provide to people living in Penticton and the South Okanagan.”

Kampe, the owner of Peter Bros. Construction in Penticton, has donated a total of $7.9 million to the Penticton Regional Hospital expansion project since 2011 when he donated a $1.5 million property adjacent to PRH that is currently being used for staff parking.

Kampe also made large donations each of the past three years: in 2015 he donated $2 million toward the Patient Care Tower project; In 2016 he donated $3 million to purchase a permanent MRI machine for PRH and in 2017 he put $1.4 million towards the purchase of a SPECT-CT scan which allows PRH to have its own nuclear medicine department.

The tower is expected to open on schedule in April 2019. The second phase of the project is expected to start soon after, including creating an expanded emergency department and renovations to the pharmacy and material stores.