Coun. Chuck Puchmayr was a lot healthier during a recent visit to the intensive care unit at Vancouver General Hospital than he was the last time he was there.
Operation Popcorn paid its annual visit to hospitals in B.C. and the Yukon, including Royal Columbian and Vancouver General. During the visits, organ transplant recipients thank hospital staff for the gift of life and deliver festive tins of popcorn to staff in intensive care units, emergency departments and operating rooms across the province.
On Dec. 6, Puchmayr was part of a team that visited Vancouver General Hospital, the hospital where he underwent a life-saving liver transplant in January 2009.
“The staff are very pleased to be able to see the survivors of organ transplantation, and I believe that this interaction with those on the front line greatly helps promote and enhance participation in organ donation,” he told the Record. “Today was my first time back in ICU since my life-saving transplant. Please become a pledged organ and tissue donor by registering at transplant.bc.ca.”
Puchmayr, who served as New Westminster’s MLA from 2005 to 2009, announced in January 2009 that he was fighting liver cancer and wouldn’t be seeking re-election in the spring 2010 provincial election. When hospitalized, he was just weeks away from death and was fast-tracked for a transplant because of his critical liver failure.
Puchmayr has since kept busy on a variety of fronts including serving on city council since 2011 (having previously served from 1996 to 2005) and spearheading A Beef With Hunger Society, which uses idle farm land to raise beef and produce that’s donated to non-profit meal providers and an HIV protein food bank.
