What gets funded

The gift you leave in your Will helps thousands of woman and newborns each year. Every gift can make a real difference.

family with newborn Donations given in a Will are held and invested by the Foundation in a permanent endowment to provide funds to support the Foundation’s annual financial commitment to the Hospital. In this way your legacy continues to help save and change lives permanently, year after year.

Each year at least half the interest will be re-invested into the fund to help protect the fund against inflation and to ensure ongoing growth. The balance of the interest is used to support research, programs, or the purchase of equipment or to continue to grow the fund.

At BC Women’s, every day brings with it the opportunity to make a difference in someone’s life. It is only through the generosity of donors that these opportunities become reality.

Take a look at some of these examples of what your permanent legacy helps to accomplish:

Outreach programs which extend to the remote corners of the province, serve over 100 communities.
270 babies lives were saved last year by feeding them from our Human Milk Bank – the only one in Canada.
Since our HIV/AIDS drug regimen – developed at BC Women’s – was introduced over 10 years ago, not one HIV-positive baby has been born to an HIV-positive mother on this program.
Specialized training for nurses throughout B.C. so that one day women anywhere in the province can get maternity care close to their home communities.
Osteofit™, developed in 1997 at BC Women’s assists people with osteoporosis in B.C. Osteofit has been offered at over 70 community centres throughout B.C. and over 300 instructors have been certified. Thousands of people have been helped to find relief from pain and a renewal of their independence.

to name but a few…

BC Women’s has outreach programs in over 100 communities throughout BC.
BC Women’s has the provincial mandate for women’s health. 57% of our patients are from outside Vancouver.
The only human milk bank in Canada is here, at BC Women’s.
Our Centre for Excellence in Women’s Health Research for Western Canada makes discoveries that are improving women’s lives around the world.
We are over 80 years old - our original hospital (Grace Hospital) was opened on October 2, 1927.
1987 was our record year for deliveries - with 8,235 babies delivered.
BC Women’s is the only facility in BC to perform corrective surgeries on babies bladders and kidneys before they are born.
In one year we delivered 12 sets of triplets and 1 set of quads - that’s 40 babies for 13 families! We also delivered 144 sets of twins.
BC Women’s houses the largest Recurrent Pregnancy Loss Clinic in Canada.
Our homecare program for women in high-risk pregnancy was the first of its kind in Canada.
BC Women’s was the first in Canada to have obstetricians performing ultrasound on pregnant women - our ultrasound unit is the largest in the country.
The mortality rate for cervical cancer in First Nations and Chinese women is many times higher than the general population. Our Aboriginal Health Program and our Asian Women’s Wellness Clinic are changing that.
Our Aurora Centre - helping women beat substance dependency - is the only long term facility exclusively for women in the province.
The Oak Tree Clinic was the first Centre in Western Canada to document a decrease in the transmission of HIV from mother to baby through the use of drug therapy.
We are the leading high-risk maternity hospital in the province.
Since our inception 75 years ago, we have delivered over 280,000 babies.
Our Sexual Assault Service has been invited to train health professionals in places as far away as Japan.
85% of mothers who give birth at BC Women’s breastfeed their babies.
British Columbia’s only Bachelors Program in Midwifery was developed by BC Women’s and UBC.
We are Canada’s busiest maternity hospital - delivering more than 7,600 babies every year. That’s 20% of all the babies born in B.C. and almost double the number that are born at any other hospital in the province.
We are the only facility in the province devoted exclusively to the health of women, newborns, and their families. We care for over 68,000 patients each year.
We saved 270 babies lives last year by feeding them from our Human Milk Bank - the only one in Canada.
Our researchers discovered that early amniocentesis was not as safe as having the procedure at 15 to 17 weeks - a fact that changed hospital practices worldwide.
Babies born prematurely or with serious health problems are cared for in our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, the province’s premier and largest intensive care nursery for newborns.
We were the first hospital in Canada to have midwives providing care.
Our Aboriginal Health Program provides outreach services such as mobile Pap test clinics to communities across the province.
We have a Continence Clinic that provides care for women with urinary and/or fecal incontinence, a symptom affecting three in seven women.
Since our HIV/AIDS drug regimen, developed at BC Women’s 4 years ago, not one HIV-positive baby has been born to an HIV-positive mother. We provide care for HIV-infected women, pregnant women, their partners and children.
Our Osteofit Program, an internationally recognized community exercise program for people with osteoporosis, is offered in community centres across the province.
Our Reproductive Mental Health Program provides treatment and support to women with postpartum depression and severe premenstrual syndrome.
Our Sexual Assault Service provides comprehensive and compassionate care to survivors of sexual assault.
Fir Square is a unique program assisting substance addicted women to reduce harm to their unborn babies through education and treatment.