$500,000 Donation Announced by the John Andrews Foundation
Published Thursday, October 31, 2019
Continuing their decades-long support of close-to-home healthcare for our community, the John Andrews Foundation announced a $500,000 donation to the Our Hearts At Home Cardiovascular Campaign; a multi-million capital campaign to bring cardiovascular surgery to Northwestern Ontario.
“We are proud to continue our support of local healthcare services,” said Allan McKitrick, Chair, John Andrews Foundation. “This particular donation is significant as all of us have seen the stress that people experience when they need to leave town to access life-saving cardiac surgery. We want to ensure that, should people need surgery, they can have it here at home.”
Continued McKitrick, “We’ve been donors to the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation for decades, funding many different areas of care throughout the Hospital. We’ve seen our donations in use and it’s very apparent that they’re used to enhance healthcare right here in our community. That’s vitally important, not only to us as funders, but to all residents who have chosen to make Northwestern Ontario their home.”
“This cardiovascular surgery program simply couldn’t exist without the generous support of our community,” said Eric Zakrewski, Campaign Cabinet, Our Hearts At Home Cardiovascular Campaign. “We are so thankful that the John Andrews Foundation chose to lend their support so that we will no longer be the only city in the province where access to cardiac surgery is more than a day’s drive away.”
“Our program will benefit greatly from the John Andrews Foundation,” said Dr. Peter Voros, Executive Vice President, In-Patient Care Programs at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre. “Their donation will be used to help expand an existing operating room for cardiac surgery, and help build a new in-patient recovery ward for patients who undergo surgery. We are tremendously grateful to them for choosing our Hospital as a beneficiary of their funds.”
“I cannot even put into words how much this surgical program will mean for future patients,” said Rod Morrison, recipient of quintuple bypass surgery in Hamilton. “Leaving town for urgent surgery is stressful enough, but it doesn’t even begin to compare to the stress you undergo trying to get back home after being discharged. It’s truly an odyssey and it isn’t a trip anyone should have to endure.”
Added Morrison, “There’s the little things you don’t even think about, like the inability to lift luggage or manage stairs once you’ve had highly-invasive surgery. You’re in pain, you’re tired and all you want to do is be back in your own home. I’m so thankful my wife Lesley was able to accompany me and make all the arrangements to get me home, as there is absolutely no way I could have made the trip on my own. I’m deeply grateful to all the donors, including the John Andrews Foundation, who are making the cardiovascular surgery program a priority for our community and keeping people at home, where they can best be supported.”
Donations to the Our Hearts At Home Campaign can be made:
Online: OurHeartsAtHome.ca
Phone: (807) 345-4673
In Person: At the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre (Donation Centre)
By Mail: 980 Oliver Rd. Thunder Bay, ON P7B 6V4
-30-
For more information, please contact:
Heather Vita
Director, Marketing and Communications
Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation
Tel: 684-7111 Cell: 631-3793
E-mail: Heather.Vita@healthsciencesfoundation.ca
healthsciencesfoundation.ca
OurHeartsAtHome.ca