Local couple makes 'transformative' donation to Cape Breton Regional Hospital

The neonatal unit at Cape Breton Regional Hospital is getting what the Sydney facility's fundraisers describe as a "transformative" donation from a local couple. 

At a ceremony on Friday morning, staff at the newly christened Sutherland Neonatal Intensive Care Unit celebrated the generosity of Gordon and Joan Sutherland. The Cape Breton couple chose the NICU as the destination for a donation they first offered to the hospital in May. 

Neither the couple nor the Cape Breton Regional Hospital Foundation disclosed the amount of the donation, which will be spread out over a 10-year period. 

The couple's gift has already allowed the NICU to either replace or plan to replace aging equipment that was complicating the jobs of its staffers, according to the unit's clinical nurse lead, Haley Gouthro. 

As an example, she pointed to infant incubators that are "past their life expectancy" and new brain monitors that oversee brain function and seizure activity in babies in the NICU. 

"It was very challenging for bedside staff to be able to interpret the information on the monitor," Gouthro said. 

"So this new monitor would allow for really easy interpretation, which would of course allow us to diagnose and treat the infant a lot sooner. And if infants are required to be transferred to the IWK [Health Centre], that would happen in a more timely fashion."

In addition to other equipment needs such as ultrasound machines and phototherapy lights, the donated funds will also enable upgrades to rooms that allow up to 14 parents to stay near their children while they are receiving treatment in the NICU. 

Hospital fundraisers now broadening their focus 

As a result of the Sutherlands' contribution, the hospital foundation now has more freedom to focus on other services, according to CEO Paula MacNeil. 

"There are so many needs within the hospital, so a donation like this that the Sutherlands have given absolutely allows the foundation to be able to look at other locations in the hospital that we can support," MacNeil said. 

In an interview a few hours after the Sutherlands arrived at the hospital to see the NICU renamed in their honour, MacNeil praised the couple for their generosity. 

"People like the Sutherlands are actually as humble as they are generous. They knew that they were in a situation where they knew that they could afford to give back, and they wanted to do that as anonymously as possible, and they wanted to give back to share what success they had in life so that others' lives could be made easier," she said.

With the NICU caring for an average of 300 infants every year, MacNeil said she feels the Sutherlands wanted to create a brighter future for children who have yet to come into the world. 

"I think they put it that they could make a difference for future generations," she said.