Myron and Berna Garron have given the largest private donation to the IWK children’s hospital in Halifax—a total of $25 million.
The hospital hopes this will transform their mental health and addictions treatment for kids and youth and make the IWK one of the first places in the world to offer what they’re calling an “ecosystem” of services.
Alexa Bagnell, the chief of psychiatry at the hospital, said she burst into tears when she first heard how large the donation was.
“This kind of generosity, you never expect to see it in your lifetime, and it’s going to make a legacy difference for our future, for our kids. And we’re all going to get to see it, and I can’t wait,” she told reporters on Monday.
The hospital revealed the amount of the donation at the Dr. Richard B. Goldbloom pavilion to a packed lobby on Monday.
When they made the announcement, a few people shot streamers over the crowd, some of which fell onto the Garrons, where they sat in the front row.
They also donated $10 million to the hospital in 2012. The Garron Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health is named after them.
Alexa Bagnell, chief of psychiatry at the IWK, is pictured on Sept. 9, 2024. (Jacob Moore/Acadia Broadcasting)
Bagnell says some of their mental health services aren’t working as well as they would like them to.
What they want to do is build an ecosystem for mental health care, which means connecting children and youth with the right services no matter how they get into the health system.
That starts with the eight Integrated Youth Services sites across Nova Scotia, and the current provincial government is helping to fund that project.
In some cases, patients might also be referred to community mental health clinics for weekly appointments.
But the problem is, if patients need more intense care, what Bagnell called “intensive services,” then their wait time could be a year long, with a wait list of 30 or 40 people.
“We don’t have any other waits that are that long in the province,” said Bagnell.
That’s the final area of the ecosystem that needs improvement, and Bagnell hopes this funding would solve that and then some.
Kids who get this treatment can go from having no interest in extracurricular activities, no connections with other people, low attendance in school to graduating, getting their GED and thinking about a future they didn’t think they would have, she said.
Instantly motivated to help
Stephen Bowman is on the advisory group for Myron and Berna Barron.
He said they have a long history of supporting the IWK, and when they learned about the mental health ecosystem, they wanted to support it.
Their donation in 2012 helped build the Garron centre, which changed mental health care for youth at the hospital. But the next step was to take it to the rest of the province.
“When the Garrons learned that that was the vision, and that this was something that really no other place in the world was doing in a meaningful way, they just said, ‘How can we help? And how can we be part of that?’ And that motivated this gift instantly,” said Bowman.
Inspired to help others
Canon Beazley, 14, has a YouTube channel where he unboxes horror and Halloween decorations, and he and his parents set up a haunted house to raise money for the IWK after his own experience at the hospital.
Beazley had cancer at a young age, but he went through chemo and came out the other side cancer free.
Then he started to notice some pain in his chest one day, he told the crowd at the donation announcement.
“I would get dizzy and confused. It felt like I was having a heart attack or something,” he said.
After a few trips to the IWK, he learned they were panic attacks, and he was diagnosed with PTSD, which stemmed from his experience with cancer.
In a lot of ways, it scared him more than cancer because it was part of his own mind, he said.
But after some treatment he learned how better to manage his anxiety.
“I emerged stronger than ever and motivated to help others. Helping others is what it’s all about. Helping others is what the Garron family has done today with this generous donation.”
