MUHC seeking $10M for research
Sylvia, Richard Cruess lend their names to campaign
It’s the biggest hospital research institute in Quebec, and has made major discoveries in diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and childhood blindness, among other illnesses.
And now two Montreal medical legends — Sylvia and Richard Cruess — have agreed to lend their names to a $10-million fundraising campaign for the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre. The goal of the twoyear campaign is to subsidize fellowships, professorships and scholarships, while creating a so-called ignition fund to spur innovation.
“Research has always been very important to McGill and its hospitals,” said Sylvia Cruess, who was honoured along with her husband at a ceremony at the MUHC on Thursday. “It’s raising money and I think it’s wonderful.”
Added Richard Cruess: “We are totally devoted to this institution and have been since we both started working at the Royal Vic in 1955 as interns.”
Gov. Gen. David Johnston was among those invited to the ceremony. Some corporate donors have already made pledges, and once the fundraising goal is reached, the MUHC will name the institute’s auditorium after the couple, who are both 87 and who have been married for 65 years.
Sylvia Cruess had practised as an endocrinologist, set up the metabolic day centre at the Royal Victoria Hospital in 1967 and was the first woman to serve as the MUHC’s medical director. Richard Cruess practised as an orthopedic surgeon and served as dean of medicine at McGill for 14 years.
Although they retired in 1995, they’ve continued to devote themselves to medicine and to the MUHC. In 2002, they were part of an international effort to modernize the Hippocratic oath, producing a physician charter on medical professionalism.
And unlike some of the current managers of the MUHC — who have choose their words very carefully when talking about the organization’s lack of provincial government funding — the couple are not shy to speak their minds.
“Do we believe the MUHC’s budget is adequate for its role? No,” Richard Cruess said. “Frankly, I don’t think any fair-minded person can think that an institution that is brand new and is not able to use all its facilities when the need is there is being treated properly.”
“But we’ll get over it,” Sylvia Cruess said.
Bruce Mazer, interim executive director of the research institute, was more circumspect when asked about the MUHC’s funding dilemma. “Researchers here really want to do good,” he responded. “Whether it’s in cancer or in allergy or diabetes or rehabilitation or global health, people really want to change things. And they do a phenomenal job on shoestring resources.”
Two weeks ago, the usually apolitical MUHC Foundation — which is behind the $10-million research fundraising campaign — released a statement to media calling for an urgent meeting with Health Minister Gaétan Barrette to “bring the funding of our hospitals up to date.”
The morning after that statement was issued, Barrette responded with a communiqué of his own, reminding the MUHC foundations that “their role is not to manage health-care institutions.”
On Thursday, Julie Quenneville, president of the MUHC Foundation (which oversees the Royal Vic foundation, among others), declined to comment further on the funding dispute. “We’re trying to remain focused on what our responsibility is, which is (raising funds) to close that gap between quality and excellence,” Quenneville said. “The purpose of that press release was to call for discussions — and not in the media. It doesn’t help us and it doesn’t help the minister, I think.”