$500,000 donation grows Bell's
support for mental health care access in Québec
MONTREAL, Jan. 26, 2015 /CNW Telbec/ - CHU Sainte-Justine
and Bell today announced a gift of $500,000 from Bell Let's Talk to support Québec's
first Integrated Mother-Child Centre for Eating Disorders.
Eating disorders: A steadily growing problem among children
and teens in Quebec
Over the past four years, the number of young patients admitted to
Sainte-Justine for an eating
disorder has increased by 44%, from 83 to 120 hospitalizations per
year. Sainte-Justine treats the
highest proportion of hospitalized patients with eating disorders
in Québec, 75% of whom are referred to the hospital from outside
the Montréal area.
"This is a project of paramount importance for Québec," said Dr.
Fabrice Brunet, Chief Executive
Officer of CHU Sainte-Justine. "Sainte-Justine has been a leader in the field
of eating disorders for more than 30 years. With Bell's support, we
will further expand the solutions available to address a problem
that is increasing at an alarming rate, and work with our partners
across the province to reach out to hundreds of families in order
to ensure their children can benefit from services that are among
the best in the world."
The contribution from Bell Let's Talk will help CHU
Sainte-Justine move forward with the first step in the development
of this integrated facility, the opening of a day hospital that
will provide an intermediate level of care between full
hospitalization and outpatient services. This new approach will
ensure a more targeted and personalized level of intervention for
young patients and their families in an effort to decrease the
number and duration of hospital stays and offer enhanced support
for families as youth reintegrate to normal living. Ultimately, the
day hospital will help prevent the development of eating disorders,
reduce their length and improve patients' overall prognosis.
"We are very pleased to partner with CHU Sainte-Justine to
support Québec's first Integrated Mother-Child Centre for Eating
Disorders. This key centre will address a critical need for
increased access to care for young people with serious eating
disorders and much-needed support for their families, not only in
the Montréal area but across the province," said Martine Turcotte, Vice Chair Québec at Bell.
"Bell Let's Talk's has committed approximately $27 million to expanding care options and driving
new research in mental health care in Québec, along with ending the
stigma of mental illness. We are proud to support CHU
Sainte-Justine and many other hospitals and institutions all across
Québec in the tremendous work they are doing."
Concrete solutions to meet an urgent need
The new centre will serve as a referral facility and a
comprehensive, specialized platform for the diagnosis, treatment
and support of patients aged 6 to 18 with eating disorders, as well
as young mothers-to-be. It will also help advance teaching and
research in this field. Eating disorders have the highest mortality
rate of all mental illnesses amongst young people. The disease
affects school, work and social life and is associated with serious
medical consequences and other psychiatric disorders.
"The challenges before us are great," said Dr. Danielle Taddeo, a pediatrician and the head of
adolescent medicine at Sainte-Justine's Department of Pediatrics and
the co-director of the integrated centre. "This new facility will
enable us to consolidate our expertise in a single location and
bring the necessary resources together to overcome these
challenges."
"In the short term, we will also strive to better align the care
provided by the adolescent medicine and psychiatric units, adapt
our services to the growing number of youths aged 18 and
younger with an eating disorder, promote the optimal continuity of
care and facilitate the transition toward adult services," added
Dr. Pierre-Olivier Nadeau, a child
and adolescent psychiatrist in Sainte-Justine's Department of Psychiatry and
the centre's other co-director.
The donation from Bell Let's Talk is part of the CHU
Sainte-Justine Foundation's Healing More Better campaign,
ongoing until 2018.
"We are fortunate to be able to count on Bell's invaluable
support and major commitment to this ambitious, forward-looking
initiative aimed at continuously improving the health of our
children," concluded Maud Cohen,
President and Executive Director of the CHU Sainte-Justine
Foundation.
Bell Let's Talk Day is January
28
On January 28, for every text
message, wireless and long distance call made by Bell Canada and Bell Aliant customers, every
tweet using #BellLetsTalk, and every Facebook share of that day's
Bell Let's Talk Day image at Facebook.com/BellLetsTalk, Bell will
donate 5 cents more to Canadian
mental health programs.
In 2014, Canadians answered the call with a total of 109,451,718
messages including texts, wireless and long distance calls, tweets
and Facebook shares, meaning Bell added another $5,472,585.90 to its Bell Let's Talk funding
commitment. Based on its original $50
million donation and the results of the last 4 Bell Let's
Talk Days, Bell has now committed more than $67.5 million to Canadian mental health.
Bell's donations are made at no extra charge to Bell Let's Talk
Day participants, though normal long distance or text charges, if
any, apply.
The Bell Let's Talk mental health initiative
Bell Let's Talk promotes mental health based on 4 action pillars -
anti-stigma, care and access, research, and workplace best
practices. The initiative supports mental health leaders across the
country including l'Institut universitaire en santé mentale de
Montréal, Hôpital Charles-LeMoyne,
Montreal Jewish Hospital, the Douglas Mental Health University
Institute, La Fondation du Centre hospitalier universitaire de
Québec, Concordia University,
Université Laval Foundation, CHU
Sainte-Justine, the Royal Ottawa Hospital, the Centre for Addiction
and Mental Health (CAMH), the University of
British Columbia, Queen's University, Brain Canada, Kids Help Phone, Sunnybrook Hospital and Vancouver General
Hospital.
The annual Bell Let's Talk Community Fund supports front-line
mental health organizations in every region of the country. The
Fund has provided grants of $5,000 to
$50,000 to hundreds of community organizations focused on
improving access to programs and services that support people
living with mental health issues.
To learn more about the Bell Let's Talk campaign, and to
download the Bell Let's Talk toolkit to help get the conversation
started, please visit Bell.ca/LetsTalk
About Bell
Bell is Canada's largest communications company, providing
consumers and business customers with wireless, TV, Internet, home
phone and business communications services. Bell Media is Canada's
premier multimedia company with leading assets in television,
radio, out of home, and digital media. Bell is wholly owned by
Montréal's BCE Inc. (TSX, NYSE: BCE). For more information, please
visit Bell.ca
About CHU Sainte-Justine
The Sainte-Justine university
hospital centre (CHU Sainte-Justine) is the largest mother-child
centre in Canada and the second
largest pediatric hospital in North
America. A member of the Université de Montréal extended
network of excellence in health (RUIS), Sainte-Justine has 5,664 employees,
including 1,578 nurses and nursing assistants;
1,117 other healthcare professionals; 502 physicians,
dentists and pharmacists; 822 residents; and more than
200 researchers, 300 volunteers and 3,400 interns
and students in a wide range of disciplines. Sainte-Justine has 484 beds, including
35 at the Centre de réadaptation Marie Enfant, the only
exclusively pediatric rehabilitation centre in Quebec. The World Health Organization has
recognized CHU Sainte-Justine as a "health promoting hospital."
chusj.org
About the CHU Sainte-Justine Foundation
The Foundation's mission is to engage the community and support CHU
Sainte-Justine in its commitment to developing better ways to heal
more children in Quebec and
provide them with one of the highest levels of healthcare in the
world. www.fondation-sainte-justine.org.
SOURCE Bell Canada