Rocker Larry Gowan and the Duchess of York at the Scarborough World Gala: no other hospital fundraiser promises an evening like that.
The Scarborough Hospital Foundation has the Duchess, Lady Sarah Ferguson, as the keynote for at its second annual high-end event this Saturday, May 10, CEO Michael Mazza said, thanks to Ferguson’s particular interest in cancer treatment.
Foundation board member Melvin John simply asked a friend of the former wife of Prince Andrew - known in the 1980s as "Fergie" - if she could help, Mazza said this week.
Through this event the Foundation is out to raise $2 million for the hospital’s cancer care program, and since cancer care is "close to her heart," Mazza said, the people who meet the duchess Saturday will find her approachable.
Ferguson is touring the hospital Saturday morning and seeing some donors privately, he added. "She’s given us an incredible amount of time."
Also speaking at the World Gala - for which seats at the Sheraton Centre Toronto cost a minimum of $1,250 - is Janice Gowan, wife of the Juno-award-winning Scarborough singer, who came to the hospital for chemotherapy in 2012.
Janice Gowan had high praise for the physicians and nurses who treated her at TSH, saying "she felt she was being treated like an individual," Mazza said.
Receiving a lifetime achievement award will be Dr. Dhun Noria, TSH’s chief of laboratory medicine, who along with her husband recently handed the hospital the sort of large donation Mazza said gives hospital confidence its community is prepared to support its needs and make it great.
That the hospital faces an uncertain future - it declined in March to merge with its neighbour, the Rouge Valley Health System, and much has been said in recent months about its aging facilities - is something Mazza acknowledges too.
But people shouldn’t question the foundation’s ability to marshal community support, he argued, because Scarborough residents are starting to find the "pride of place" that can drive donations.
People are better off getting cancer care close to home, and the quality of that care in Scarborough, said Mazza is "every bit as good, and in many cases, I would say better" than patients would find elsewhere.
"I see a lot of great things in this community."
Waiting times there for chemotherapy remain short, around 24,000 patients a year visit TSH’s oncology clinics, and 6,000 a year undergo the breast-screening program there.
The World Gala’s mission this year is primarily about securing new equipment, another area where TSH, despite its efforts, tends to lag behind better-funded hospitals in downtown Toronto.
A new blood-testing machine for its cancer-care laboratory will cost $1.7 million, and 20 flexible instruments called cytoscopes will cost $20,000 each.
Larry Gowan, the Laura Lynn Band and Saara Chaudry, who played the young Cosette in the Mirvish production of Les Miserables, will each perform at the event.
Details on the gala are at www.tsh.to/img/Gala_Brochure_2014.pdf
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