The Foundation

St. Paul’s Hospital - Inspired Care through Inspired giving

Your donations help ensure people receive excellent and compassionate care at St. Paul’s. Here are a few of the recent projects and technology generous donors like you have funded:

  • In January 2009, St. Paul’s Hospital became first hospital in Canada to use a new high-definition, low-radiation CT scanner to diagnose patients. The delivery of the scanner was made possible by early commitments from donors - the foundation continues to actively raise the remaining funds needed to complete the purchase. The scanner is being used for advanced heart imaging as well as CT scans of the brain, liver, kidneys, lungs and other areas throughout the body. The high-definition technology means that some patients can be diagnosed without the need of more invasive and costly tests. St. Paul’s specialists are also collaborating with peers at other leading academic health science centres on research with the scanner to enhance future diagnostic and imaging technology.
  • In May 2009, St. Paul’s Emergency Department’s new Diagnostic Treatment Unit (DTU) opened to the public. Part of the $14.7-million multi-phased Emergency Innovation Project, the DTU is one of the only units of its kind in Canada and allows physicians and staff to provide 24-hour, aggressive diagnosis and treatment of serious conditions like chest pain and asthma in a comfortable, self-contained unit often without the need to admit to hospital. The entire Emergency Innovation Project will be complete by 2010 - better equipping St. Paul’s Hospital as the designated spectators’ hospital during the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
  • In January 2009, two 3D-capable echocardiography machines were installed in St. Paul’s Heart Centre. These cutting-edge machines show St. Paul’s cardiologists and cardiac specialists the structure and blood flow in the heart and are crucial to performing corrective heart procedures like valve replacements. This new technology will also enable technicians to scan 18,000 patients per year -80 per cent more than previously.
  • Thanks to more than 800 donors, St. Paul’s raised more than $850,000 for state-of-the-art bronchoscopy and Aperio ScanScope equipment for use in diagnosing serious lung illnesses and creating digital images from glass microscope slides, which will be used for breakthrough care, research and teaching at St. Paul’s.