SickKids receives $100 million in largest single gift ever to the hospital

The Peter Gilgan Foundation has donated $100 million to the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids).

According to the hospital, this is the largest single gift ever to SickKids. The donation will support the SickKids VS Limits campaign, a key element of which involves the redevelopment of the SickKids campus, including building a new patient care tower on University Avenue, which will be named the Peter Gilgan Family Patient Care Tower.

“We are extraordinarily grateful to Peter Gilgan and the Peter Gilgan Foundation for their ongoing philanthropic leadership and dedication to SickKids. Our vision for the children’s hospital of the future includes the construction of a state-of-the-art building, matching our world-class care with family-friendly spaces for patients and their loved ones. This gift is unparalleled and will help ensure our vision becomes reality,” says Dr. Ronald Cohn, President and CEO, SickKids.

“In conjunction with a commitment from the Government of Ontario, and support from other donors, this gift will help SickKids continue to advance children’s health through exemplary clinical care, breakthrough research, and teaching excellence both at home and around the world.”

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Mayor John Tory was at SickKids on Monday morning for the unveiling of the news, which he called “amazing.”

Amazing news coming out of @SickKidsNews this morning! Delighted to join members of the @SickKids community to celebrate an unprecedented gift of $100 million, donated by the Peter Gilgan Foundation to The Hospital for Sick Children. pic.twitter.com/G2fQF6atcH

— John Tory (@JohnTory) June 3, 2019

In 1949, SickKids was built at 555 University Avenue, 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 Street. But, according to SickKids, medical treatments and technology have come a long way since the 1940s or even the 1990s.

“To continue to have the opportunity to support SickKids is an honour and is also very humbling,” says Peter Gilgan. “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.”

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 with 1,200 world-class trainees, a Simulation Centre for hands-on teaching, and provide 6,000 professionals, management and support staff with up-to-date spaces to do their best work.

The second building, the Peter Gilgan Family Patient Care Tower, will house critical care and inpatient units. It will 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 a vastly expanded emergency department, says the hospital.