Sudbury's hospital amalgamates its foundations

Health Sciences North announced Tuesday the Northern Cancer Foundation, Neo Kids Foundation and Health Sciences North Foundation have amalgamated into one entity.

Officials said the HSN Foundation, as it will be known, will streamline foundation operations at the hospital to increase the impact of donations with the end goal of raising more money to help serve patients across the Northeast.

"Everybody's coming together to be more focused on what's important to us, and that is to raise money to support people in northeastern Ontario,” said Anthony Keating, president of HSN Foundation.

The amalgamation caps more than a decade of philanthropy for the three foundations.

"Over the last five years, we've been able to raise $64 million from the people of northeastern Ontario to really help advance, critical health-care projects that are going to help us today and into the future," Keating said.

"We've already raised $35 million to support our future capital here at Health Sciences North. So essentially making sure that we have the right sized hospital to support people now and into the future."

Keating said donors told them they wanted to see more impact with less duplication. Moving forward, donors will continue to have a choice where their money is spent.

"If a donor wants their money to go to cancer, they want their money to go to pediatrics. They want their money to go to cardiology, they want their money to go to research, they still have the power and the ability to be able to do that," he said.

"Nothing changes from the donor's side of things. We're just becoming more effective and more efficient internally."

First-hand experience

Pamela Therrien’s son Lennox was cared for at Neo Kids seven years ago and she said she knows first-hand the impact that dollars raised by the foundation can make.

"The importance of having this care close to home really impacted my family," Therrien said.

"My son, Lennox, when he was six, went through an illness. And I have a younger son, Larson, who was four at the time and getting this level of health care in Sudbury kept our family together. And I really, truly believe it helped Lennox's recovery, as well, because friends could visit, family could visit, and I do feel like that just helped his recovery."

She said serving as a member of the board for HSN’s Foundation allows her to serve an organization that means so much to her.

"This foundation relies on support from the community," Therrien said.

"Any dollar counts, you know. You could give $50, you can give $10, you can give $1 million. It all matters and it all goes to just such a wonderful place that saved my son's life."

Dr. Lacey Pitre, chief of oncology at HSN, said the support of the foundation has allowed her and others across the north to work on clinical trials.

"It is very difficult to access new cancer drugs and clinical trials for cancer patients, and many times we need to send our patients to one of the larger cities like Toronto or Ottawa, and they do amazing work there," Pitre said.

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"But what we would really like to do is to provide these cutting-edge treatments and new technologies as close to home as possible. Part of that involves working together as a region, and that means getting on the same page. And we have been working really effectively with the team in Sault Ste Marie and the team in Timmins. And so our goal is to launch a combined clinical trial at the same time across the region. This is a lofty goal, and it would not be possible without the support of our foundations."

She said that reducing the administrative burden across multiple foundations will allow everyone to focus their attention as a team on the highest priority factors that affect patients in the north.

To learn more about the amalgamation, click here.