Our cause? Your health
Your support of the 2024 Festival of Trees will help us bring monumental change to health and healthcare in Alberta, with impact that will be felt across the globe.
What would your world look like without Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, transplant waitlists, or repeat trips to Emergency?
Believe it.
The University Hospital Foundation is taking aim at some of the biggest and most complex challenges of our time. Your generous donations to the University Hospital Foundation will empower us to make transformative health system change across numerous causes.
That means support for more transformative projects like these:
Make Alzheimer’s Disease a Memory
Thanks to a $4 Million matching gift from local philanthropist Don Hunter and your support, University of Alberta Professor and renowned neurologist Dr. Jack Jhamandas is working toward bringing a new drug to human trials — with the power to prevent, and reverse, Alzheimer’s Disease.
Cardiac care at the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute (Maz)
1 in 4 Canadians will be diagnosed with heart disease in their lifetime. The Maz has some of the most advanced equipment, technology and work environments in the world, as well as the best and brightest minds working in cardiac care today. But cardiac disease isn’t slowing down, so we can’t either.
Down with Diabetes
25 years after the Edmonton Protocol was developed, a ground-breaking method of transplanting pancreatic islets for the treatment of Type 1 diabetes, Dr. Shapiro and his team at the University of Alberta are developing a way for diabetes’ patients to produce their own insulin.
The Festival of Trees has raised over $25 million for the University Hospital Foundation over the last 40 years
Innovations such as osseointegration, the stroke ambulance, and the gamma knife were brought to Edmonton with help from funds raised through the Festival of Trees
The University Hospital Foundation funds cutting-edge research in areas like neurology, organ transplant, and cardiac to name a few.
Your support makes a difference
The Festival of Trees has raised over $25 million for critically important causes at the University of Alberta Hospital site. From bringing incision-free brain surgery technology to Edmonton, to expanding intensive care for cardiac patients, your support has impacted patients from head-to-toe.
Here are some of the amazing stories that have come from the last 40 years of support:
Safe at Home:
Home Dialysis Helps End-Stage Kidney Patients Return to Life
Taryn Gantar is one of over 1500 people living with end-stage kidney disease who receive treatment through Alberta Kidney Care – North, headquartered at the University of Alberta Hospital. For the past twenty years, Taryn has had to receive dialysis, typically for four hours per day, three days per week. Before switching to home dialysis, she had to use precious energy reserves to commute to the hospital for the treatment.
Every Second Counts: Bringing Canada’s First Stroke Ambulance to Edmonton
Lukas Jardine was just 28 years old when the left side of his face began to sag, his eye drooping. His wife, Celine, knew right away he was having a stroke and that, if help didn’t arrive soon enough, their lives could be dramatically changed forever. Within minutes of its arrival, Lukas was wheeled into the Stroke Ambulance for a CT scan. Minutes later, the images were sent to an on-call neurologist at the University of Alberta Hospital, who consulted with the on-board stroke physician.
Targeting Tumours:
Gamma Knife at the Brain Centre
Major Steve Kuervers was one of the last Canadian soldiers to leave Afghanistan, and soon after returning home, he suffered a splitting headache. Doctors at his base sent him to the Brain Centre at the University of Alberta Hospital fearing that the flight home may have caused a blood clot in his brain. Doctors found something on Steve’s CT scan – a rare brain tumor behind his right eye. Difficult to find, and even more difficult to treat. He was given the choice between traditional brain surgery, and ground-breaking Gamma Knife.
Proudly Supporting
Proudly Supporting