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Queensway Carleton Hospital gears up for growth with help of Visionaries Breakfast

March 27, 2025

Auction paddles flew up at the Queensway Carleton Hospital Foundation’s third Visionaries Breakfast on Wednesday, raising $483,000 to support its expansion.

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Auction paddles flew up at the Queensway Carleton Hospital Foundation’s third Visionaries Breakfast on Wednesday, even though there were no hockey tickets or international vacations on the line. Instead, auctioneer Ryan Watson was flanked on stage by some of the machines that the hospital hopes to buy using donations, including hospital beds ($17,000 each), Phillips monitors ($23,000 each), infant incubators ($45,000 each), and ventilators ($70,000 each). More than a dozen bidders made individual donations, raising $483,000 for the hospital. That amount brings the total raised over the past three years to $1.3 million. The hospital is gearing up to celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2026 and as Ottawa’s west end grows, president and CEO Andrew Falconer said those financial contributions are vital to ensure the hospital can grow with it. “It’s a really big milestone for us,” he said. “When you reflect back to when we opened in 1976, think of what the west of Ottawa looked like back then. It’s unrecognizable. In fact, it’s to a point where half of the city lives west of Woodroffe Avenue. That’s 500,000 people. We are serving a huge population – half of Ottawa and extending into the Ottawa Valley. That’s created tremendous pressures on our hospital.” These days, Falconer said the hospital operates at 115 to 120 per cent capacity on any given day. Patients who visit the emergency room experience long wait times. And when a bed is needed, Falconer said one can often be hard to find. In addition to purchasing equipment, Falconer said the money raised at the breakfast would go toward supporting the hospital’s expansion, which will include adding more floors to the James Beach building to accommodate 90 new inpatient beds and doubling the size of the emergency department. “This is the biggest campaign that the hospital has undertaken in its history,” Falconer said. “It’s going to be transformational for our community.”

Bidders from the Women in Philanthropy table raise their paddles to donate to the Queensway Carleton Hospital at the Visionaries Breakfast on Wednesday. Photo by Mia Jensen

Dr. Andrew Falconer, president and CEO of the Queensway Carleton Hospital, speaks at the Visionaries Breakfast on Wednesday. Photo by Mia Jensen

Cyril Leeder, president and CEO of the Ottawa Senators, accepts the Heart of Gold award for the organization's contributions to the Queensway Carleton Hospital at the Visionaries Breakfast on Wednesday. Photo by Mia Jensen

Members of the community, including businesspeople from multiple sectors, pitched into the cause, including two donors who each made $100,000 gifts. The Kiwanis Club of Nepean, which has given $230,000 to the hospital since 1988, made a $50,000 donation at the breakfast, while multiple members of the hospital foundations’s Women in Philanthropy group made large individual donations. The breakfast also spent some time highlighting its “mom and baby” maternal units and programs, which resonated with the Ottawa Senators Hockey Club. The Ottawa Senators Foundation made a $10,000 donation and was presented with a Heart of Gold award from the hospital for 23 years of contributions. “The Senators have a long-standing relationship with the hospital,” said Senators president and CEO Cyril Leeder. “It’s part of our community and we feel like we’re part of (the hospital’s) community as well. We’re really proud of our association, our staff, our executives and our players, who all live in this community. We’ve got 18 players and they have 18 kids now and more coming. So we thought it was appropriate to make a donation to the mom and baby unit.” In addition to donations, Ottawa’s business community has contributed to the hospital's efforts in other ways, according to Shannon Gorman, president and CEO of the foundation. Last fall, the hospital partnered with Carleton University to launch a new nursing program, which she said received over 700 applicants for its first cohort in September 2025. The program, which will produce 110 new nurses each year, started with Terry Matthews of Wesley Clover, who invited the hospital and foundation to present at one of his monthly Tech Tuesday events. From there, the organization formed a connection with the university. “It’s really something that’s very innovative,” Matthews said in a video about the program. “I think it will set a new standard for innovation. That matters. Health care matters. Queensway Carleton, certainly for our community here, is vital.” The breakfast closed by honouring three major “luminaries” who have made significant contributions to the hospital’s growth through the last few decades: lawyer and Equitas Consultants president Ron Prehogan, former Barrhaven city councillor Jan Harder, and the late Wayne Hussey. Harder said she first got involved with the hospital 20 years ago and, though impressed, wasn’t comfortable asking people for money. Instead, she started putting on events like golf tournaments and bowling competitions. This summer, she’ll be holding a special addition to her golf tournament with the hopes of bringing her total contributions to $1 million. Her connection to the hospital is also personal. “The picture you saw up there of me and me and my dad was taken 12 hours before he passed away,” she said. “He’d had a massive stroke while vacationing in Nova Scotia with my mom. I flew down there and it took a week to get him stabilized so they could fly him back. And my only comment there was, please, I want you to take him to the Queensway Carleton Hospital.”