The largest ever donation to the Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) foundation is expected to transform cardiac care across the country, and the hospital’s head of cardiology says the money is already attracting top talent from the United States.
The Dilawri Foundation is gifting $60 million to establish the Dilawri Cardiovascular Institute at VGH, B.C.’s largest hospital. Ajay Dilawri, whose family owns Canada’s largest automotive group, says they were moved to help after his father received care from the team in Vancouver, led by David Wood.
“We heard that if anyone can save my father’s life without open heart surgery, it would be him,” Dilawri said. “Their confidence was well placed. He and his team saved my father’s life, and for that my family will be forever grateful. We were compelled to pay that gratitude forward.”
Wood said he has spent years assembling a team to lead what he believes will become the Mayo Clinic of the north, which he calls a gamechanger for Canadian cardiac patients.
“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. The idea that a family like the Dilawri family would just say ‘dream big,’” he said. “Here is not only money for a new tower, which will be a state-of-the-art outpatient cardiovascular tower, but here’s a $25-million innovation fund (to) fix the system, make the system better for patients.”
Wood’s hope is to decrease wait times, shorten procedures, and quicken recovery.
The hospital is hoping to break ground on the new cardiovascular institute in 2027, with a projected completion date of 2030 or 2031. But Wood says the money is already being put in to work now recruiting top doctors.
“We’ve recruited some of the best and brightest minds in cardiovascular medicine in the world, including from the United States, to come here and work in Vancouver,” he told CTV News.
Wood confirmed he is receiving resumes from colleagues in the United States who are contending with new policy decisions enacted by U.S. President Donald Trump.
“What has changed as we know, is that the infrastructure to support research (in the U.S.), and I feel bad for some of my colleagues across the border, has completely changed,” Wood said. “The NIH (U.S. National institutes of Health), the funding of research, the FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) getting new technology devices approved, is now dramatically different than it was six months ago.”
Wood says he believes timing in life is crucial and the Dilawri institute, as well as Canadian health care more broadly, will benefit from the current climate in the U.S.
“Given all the turmoil that’s been happening globally, especially with our friends south of the 49th parallel, it has been amazing that these very talented researchers, clinicians, and world leading surgeons now want to come to Canada.
