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BC Women’s Hospital + Health Centre

BC Women’s Hospital + Health Centre Foundation is integral to health and well-being of women and their babies throughout the province

With over 7,000 babies born and up to 1,400 desperately ill newborns admitted every year, BC Women’s Hospital is renowned for its exemplary and sometimes miraculous care of high-risk pregnancies, and babies requiring the highest level of specialized care available in B.C.

From a parent’s perspective, the compassion of staff members is as remarkable as their high level of medical acumen. “The empathy exhibited by everyone was crucial in helping my wife Mari successfully deliver twins despite significant medical problems,” says Sean Muggah. 

But BC Women’s faces some real challenges. New technology is crucial to saving lives, especially in the 60-bed Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)—and a lot of equipment in the hospital is nearing the end of its lifespan. “We need funds to remain at the forefront of newborn intensive care, education, training and research,” says Laurie Clarke, CEO of the BC Women’s Hospital + Health Centre Foundation.

The Foundation has raised $10 million for new incubator units, ventilators and other equipment; $17 million in total is required for equipment upgrades, and once that has been achieved Clarke and her colleagues intend to raise another $6 million for training and support.

CTV News at Six anchor Tamara Taggart is betting the money will come sooner than later. As chair of the Foundation’s 21-person Newborn ICU Campaign Cabinet of fundraisers, she points out that the cabinet is a powerhouse of business and industry leaders. “We’ve attracted a wide range of professionals, including one exceptionally busy CEO who doesn’t have children himself, but is still motivated to help us,” she says.

Clarke concludes, “Pregnancy and birth seem easy to deal with until something goes wrong, then suddenly it’s a life or death situation for not one person but possibly two—and that is when the highly specialized treatment of women and their babies provided by BC Women’s Hospital is vital.”