NEO Kids expansion priority for new foundation

To say he was thrilled about the launch of the NEO Kids Foundation this morning would be an understatement, said Dr. Sean Murray, medical director of Health Sciences North's family and child program, and chief of pediatrics.

“I think it's so important for us to have a vehicle and an ability to not only raise money, but more importantly, raise recognition,” said Murray at the launch event for the new foundation, which will raise funds for children's health care in northeastern Ontario.

Murray has long advocated for a 40,000-square-foot expansion to the North Eastern Ontario Centre for Kids (NEO Kids), which would house more clinics and pediatric health-care workers to treat the region's children.

In June, the North East Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) board said the hospital did not have enough strong data to support the $55-million investment required to build the NEO Kids expansion.

To get the capital project off the ground, the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care would need to cover 90 per cent of the new centre's cost, and the hospital would cover the remaining 10 per cent, or roughly $5.5 million.

NEO Kids currently accommodates more than 35,000 patient visits per year, and receives 180 referrals each month.

The hospital has argued an expanded NEO Kids would reduce the need for parents and their children to travel to Toronto or Ottawa for medical care.

Health Sciences North refers 125 children per year to SickKids and the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), and about 500 a year from across northeastern Ontario, who make around 10,000 trips outside the northeast for care each year.

“The foundation's first priority will be fundraising for the new NEO Kids centre,” said Patricia Mills, the NEO Kids Foundation's founding president.

Mills said the seed for the foundation was planted last June when Dr. Nicolas Steinmetz, an associate professor of pediatrics at McGill University, and chair emeritus of the Montreal Children's Hospital Foundation, addressed Health Sciences North staff and management at the hospital's 2015 annual general meeting.

Steimetz was critical of the North East LHIN board for its decision not to immediately back the hospital's plan for the NEO Kids expansion.

“There are 113,000 children, roughly, in the area, and they're ignored,” he said. “That's 20 per cent of the population (in Northeastern Ontario).”

Steinmetz said children's health foundations could be valuable tools to raise funds and support for projects like NEO Kids, and encouraged Mills and others to start a foundation.

He also donated $5,000 that day to help set up the foundation.

To give the foundation a public boost, Columbus Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno has lent his support, and was named the NEO Kids Foundation's honorary chair.

Foligno, who has close ties to the community and spends the off-season in Sudbury, has experienced first-hand what it is like to be the parent of a sick child.

His daughter Milana was born on Oct. 14, 2013, with a rare heart condition called mitral valve regurgitation.

She was only three weeks old when she had open heart surgery at the Boston Children's Hospital.

Milana is doing well today, but her early battles have strengthened her father's resolve to support children's health care in northeastern Ontario.

“NEO Kids is something that is so important to Sudbury and to children all over the north,” Foligno said in a video address Thursday.

Local parent Jessica Grenier said the care her son Tyler has received at NEO Kids has been excellent.

Tyler was diagnosed with ADHD when he was five, and was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder the next year.

Grenier said she is a strong supporter for the proposed NEO Kids expansion. “That will just be wonderful for families, if they can receive care locally,” she said.

The new foundation, she added, should help raise more public awareness and support for those plans.