As St Vincent’s Hospitals and our community continue to deal with the evolving challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are very grateful for your incredible generosity in the last financial year.
Your contributions, big and small, combined to help the Foundation raise almost $33 million in new donations for St Vincent’s Hospitals and Facilities in NSW.
With your support, we continue to ensure our Hospitals can respond with agility to the needs of the pandemic. A wonderful example is the recent mobilisation of the St Vincent’s Vaccination Van, made possible with donations to our COVID-19 Community Fund, the Sutton Family and Suttons Motors. This initiative enables St Vincent’s to vaccinate homeless and vulnerable populations, who are less likely to access formal vaccination hubs.
The COVID-19 ADAPT study supported by the Foundation examines the long-term impacts of COVID-19. Findings are already helping our clinicians better understand how to treat emerging health issues for those in recovery and is even more important as our Hospitals care for increased numbers of patients in our community.
The JW & M Cunningham Foundation, established by John Cunningham AM RSC and Margaret Cunningham, provided $2.65 million in grants to our Hospitals for ongoing areas of priority including Heart Lung Innovation, Anaesthetics, Urology and Cancer Research. We are very grateful to them for their inspirational philanthropy.
The St Vincent’s Endoscopy Department celebrates the new Paul Salteri AO and Sandra Salteri Endoscopy Suites, which are now operational, with further support by a very generous $1 million donation from Kerry, Jenny and Indiana Pooley to establish a specialised Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) service to support those affected by conditions such as Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis.
Throughout these challenging times, the mental health of our community has become an area of significant concern. The priority for the Foundation in coming months is to support St Vincent’s Mental Health programs through the development of the new Urban Health Hub and Safe Haven Café at Green Park. Fundraising to achieve a target of $8 million over the next 3 years has commenced.
As always, we are grateful for your commitment and loyalty to our mission. Never have your contributions been as important or as valued. Your support also lifts the spirit of our colleagues on the frontline who are working so hard to protect the health of our community.
Thank you on behalf of us all.
Shanthini Naidoo
CEO, St Vincent’s Curran Foundation