Hamilton’s St. Joe’s aims to raise $20M to improve robotic surgery capabilities

St. Joseph’s Healthcare launched a fundraising campaign Wednesday aimed at enhancing it’s robotic surgery capabilities.

The hospital says adding one more robot can help doctors perform twice the number of robotic surgeries.

In front of an audience full of potential donors, St. Joe’s staff announced its $20 million Robotic Surgery Revolution plan.

“This campaign is allowing us to raise the funds that will be required to purchase a brand new surgical robot, so that we can double the number of robotic surgeries, introduce new surgeries,” said Sera Filice, the president and CEO of the St. Joseph’s Healthcare Foundation, “so that we can continue to care for patients with cancers, and with orthopaedic diseases using the latest technology.”

Anthony Adili, an orthopaedic surgeon, says state-of-the-art surgical systems will improve patient experiences, and enhance the hospital’s ability to perform invasive procedures with less trauma.

“You can do the procedure through smaller incisions when you’re doing the procedure, because of the precision and accuracy, there’s less soft tissue trauma around the area that you’re operating,” said Adili. “So therefore, patients feel less pain, the less blood loss and as a result, that translates into a faster recovery.”

Michelle Demers can attest to that – she shared her experience with CHCH News after receiving robotic surgery for lung cancer.

“I was up and walking within the first 24 hours and I had no pain,” said Demers. “I had minimal scarring experience – no complications – and the time to get back to my normal daily routine was a lot faster than expected.”

St. Joseph’s Healthcare staff said the Robotic Surgery Campaign is off to an amazing start – so far they’ve been able to raise over $10 million in just over a year and they’re hoping to raise the rest in the next couple of years.

“I’m pretty confident we can get there and hopefully we can get there within a year,” said Dr. Shayegan, who attended the announcement.

John Ribson, a past patient of the hospital, expressed his strong support of the healthcare by pledging $2 million of his own money – the largest gift to date.

“I’ve been at this hospital for over four decades battling bladder and kidney cancers as well,” said Ribson. “So they’ve taken really good care of me, so I feel it’s so important to give back.”

Currently, the Ontario Health Insurance Plan only covers three types of robotic surgery: for cancers of the prostate, kidney and uterus.

Yet seven out of the 10 procedures performed at St. Joe’s is not funded and relies on donations.

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