The second chapter of the game-changing campaign is helping Scarborough Health Network transform healthcare for Canada’s most diverse community
SCARBOROUGH, ON, Jan. 15, 2024 /CNW/ – Scarborough Health Network (SHN) Foundation is back with an evolution of the immensely successful Love, Scarborough fundraising campaign, demonstrating the resilience and determination of SHN healthcare workers as they provide exceptional quality care to patients. This grit allows them to overcome and do more than anyone thought possible, with less than anyone could imagine. Like performing some of the highest number of surgeries in Ontario’s oldest operating rooms and caring for more than 200,000 emergency patients in emergency departments built for half.
Now, they’re asking donors to imagine what they could do with more support.
“Coming from a place with nothing and having to work your way up represents a lot of people’s stories in Scarborough, including mine,” says Dr. Mayoorendra Ravichandiran, an Emergency Physician at SHN and one of the new faces of the Love, Scarborough campaign. “We immigrated to Canada to escape war in Sri Lanka when I was young, and my mother sacrificed so much for me and my siblings. Now, all three of us are physicians giving back to our community.
“That’s Scarborough grit, and if we can accomplish so much with so little, just imagine what we could do with more support. Things like building Canada’s first no-wait Emergency Department, which is now within our reach.”
Dr. Ravichandiran is one of 11 new faces of the campaign, along with other local business leaders, donors, grateful patients, and SHN staff who represent the campaign theme–optimism and success in the face of innumerable obstacles. With invigorated support and new donors, SHN will address not just urgent needs, but can look beyond to become a leader in research, education, and medical innovation.
Donations for Love, Scarborough will drive progress forward and support capital projects, including:
- Creating Toronto’s most modern Diagnostic Imaging Department at the General Hospital
- Building Canada’s first no-wait Emergency Department at Centenary Hospital
- Removing barriers to community mental health care across the network
- Innovating chronic kidney disease and diabetes treatment through the Bridletowne Neighbourhood Centre; and,
- Evolving research and education to support the new SHN Research Institute and Scarborough Academy of Medicine and Integrated Health in partnership with the University of Toronto
“We provide world-class care here in Scarborough, despite emergency departments that haven’t seen expansion in decades and are at double their intended capacity,” says Dr. Ravichandiran. “I experience first-hand the challenges that come with aging hospitals that have been left behind. The healthcare demands of our community are growing at a rate that has outpaced our hospitals, yet we still get the job done with compassion, because that’s who we are.”
Generous donors and supporters across Toronto and the GTA responded loud and clear to Love, Scarborough’s original rallying cry to “back us up,” raising an incredible $156 million to help close the gap between exceptional care and aging facilities. The campaign marked a significant shift for SHN’s three hospitals–Birchmount, Centenary, and General–by helping raise their profile, but more importantly, starting to raise critical donations to support urgent upgrades for their hospitals. These critical funds will finally allow SHN to begin to address significant obstacles they face after decades of being left behind.
Donations will help upgrade Scarborough’s hospitals to a level equal to the incredible people who live and work there. Learn more and donate at LoveScarborough.ca.
Situated in one of Canada’s most diverse communities, Scarborough Health Network (SHN) Foundation inspires the support necessary to improve patients’ lives through exceptional care at Scarborough Health Network across three hospitals and eight satellite sites. Since its inception, the Foundation has worked with generous donors, volunteers, and community members to raise funds needed to build state-of-the-art infrastructure and purchase the latest medical technology, supporting SHN’s vision to be Canada’s leading community teaching health network.
Launched on January 10, 2022, the Love, Scarborough campaign is an awareness campaign shedding light on the healthcare inequities Scarborough faces. Funds raised will support SHN Foundation’s $200 million fundraising goal, which will go toward critical projects like Canada’s first no-wait Emergency Department, community health centres, critical cardiac projects, and advancing research and education within Scarborough hospitals. Learn more at LoveScarborough.ca.
High-resolution images and b-roll available upon request.
SOURCE Scarborough Health Network Foundation
