TORONTO — A $100-million donation from the Peter Gilgan Foundation to The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) will help support the redevelopment of the hospital’s campus, including building a new patient care tower on University Avenue, which will be named the Peter Gilgan Family Patient Care Tower.
The donation is the largest single gift ever to SickKids which finds itself at a crossroads, according to a statement. When SickKids was built at 555 University Ave. in 1949, the building was the largest children’s hospital in the world. In 1993 the hospital expanded with the opening of the Atrium building at 170 Elizabeth St.
“But medical treatments and technology have come a long way since the 1940s or even the 1990s, making it more important than ever before for the hospital to evolve to fully realize the possibilities in children’s health,” reads the statement. “For SickKids to remain a world leader in pediatric health, the time to realize a fully redeveloped campus is now.”
SickKids will break ground in October 2019 on the first of two buildings. The first building, the Patient Support Centre, will house the SickKids Learning Institute, a Simulation Centre for hands-on teaching, and provide 6,000 professionals, management and support staff with up-to-date spaces to work in. The second building, the Peter Gilgan Family Patient Care Tower, will house critical care and inpatient units. It is expected to reflect the very latest in medical design: private one-family rooms, dedicated mental-health beds, a state-of-the-art blood and marrow/cellular transplant therapy unit, specialty operating theatres, advanced diagnostic imaging facilities, and expanded emergency department.
“To continue to have the opportunity to support SickKids is an honour and is also very humbling,” said Peter Gilgan in a statement.
“I’m in a privileged position to be able to make this gift, and I know it’s going to be used to help children today and in the future live longer and healthier lives. I want to thank my family, both the Gilgans and my Mattamy family, whose unwavering support over many years has made this commitment possible.”
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