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The CHU Sainte-Justine announces the creation of Québec's 1st Integrated Mother-Child Centre for Eating Disorders with support from Bell Let's Talk$500,000 donation grows Bell's support for mental health care access in Québec MONTREAL, Jan. 26, 2015 /CNW Telbec/ - CHU Sainte-Justine and Bell today announced a gift of $500,000 from Bell Let's Talk to support Québec's first Integrated Mother-Child Centre for Eating Disorders.
Eating disorders: A steadily growing problem among children and teens in
Quebec "This is a project of paramount importance for Québec," said Dr. Fabrice Brunet, Chief Executive Officer of CHU Sainte-Justine. "Sainte-Justine has been a leader in the field of eating disorders for more than 30 years. With Bell's support, we will further expand the solutions available to address a problem that is increasing at an alarming rate, and work with our partners across the province to reach out to hundreds of families in order to ensure their children can benefit from services that are among the best in the world." The contribution from Bell Let's Talk will help CHU Sainte-Justine move forward with the first step in the development of this integrated facility, the opening of a day hospital that will provide an intermediate level of care between full hospitalization and outpatient services. This new approach will ensure a more targeted and personalized level of intervention for young patients and their families in an effort to decrease the number and duration of hospital stays and offer enhanced support for families as youth reintegrate to normal living. Ultimately, the day hospital will help prevent the development of eating disorders, reduce their length and improve patients' overall prognosis. "We are very pleased to partner with CHU Sainte-Justine to support Québec's first Integrated Mother-Child Centre for Eating Disorders. This key centre will address a critical need for increased access to care for young people with serious eating disorders and much-needed support for their families, not only in the Montréal area but across the province," said Martine Turcotte, Vice Chair Québec at Bell. "Bell Let's Talk's has committed approximately $27 million to expanding care options and driving new research in mental health care in Québec, along with ending the stigma of mental illness. We are proud to support CHU Sainte-Justine and many other hospitals and institutions all across Québec in the tremendous work they are doing."
Concrete solutions to meet an urgent need "The challenges before us are great," said Dr. Danielle Taddeo, a pediatrician and the head of adolescent medicine at Sainte-Justine's Department of Pediatrics and the co-director of the integrated centre. "This new facility will enable us to consolidate our expertise in a single location and bring the necessary resources together to overcome these challenges." "In the short term, we will also strive to better align the care provided by the adolescent medicine and psychiatric units, adapt our services to the growing number of youths aged 18 and younger with an eating disorder, promote the optimal continuity of care and facilitate the transition toward adult services," added Dr. Pierre-Olivier Nadeau, a child and adolescent psychiatrist in Sainte-Justine's Department of Psychiatry and the centre's other co-director. The donation from Bell Let's Talk is part of the CHU Sainte-Justine Foundation's Healing More Better campaign, ongoing until 2018. "We are fortunate to be able to count on Bell's invaluable support and major commitment to this ambitious, forward-looking initiative aimed at continuously improving the health of our children," concluded Maud Cohen, President and Executive Director of the CHU Sainte-Justine Foundation.
Bell Let's Talk Day is January 28 In 2014, Canadians answered the call with a total of 109,451,718 messages including texts, wireless and long distance calls, tweets and Facebook shares, meaning Bell added another $5,472,585.90 to its Bell Let's Talk funding commitment. Based on its original $50 million donation and the results of the last 4 Bell Let's Talk Days, Bell has now committed more than $67.5 million to Canadian mental health. Bell's donations are made at no extra charge to Bell Let's Talk Day participants, though normal long distance or text charges, if any, apply.
The Bell Let's Talk mental health initiative The annual Bell Let's Talk Community Fund supports front-line mental health organizations in every region of the country. The Fund has provided grants of $5,000 to $50,000 to hundreds of community organizations focused on improving access to programs and services that support people living with mental health issues. To learn more about the Bell Let's Talk campaign, and to download the Bell Let's Talk toolkit to help get the conversation started, please visit Bell.ca/LetsTalk
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