Munk gives $18M to heart research

Peter Munk, founder and chairman of Barrick Gold (abx-t, abx-n), and his wife, Melanie, donated $18 million to his namesake cardiac centre at Toronto General Hospital, which is part of the University Health Network (UHN).

The gift kick started the “Building the Future – from the heart” $100-million campaign to support human resources and innovation.

It will help establish six centres of excellence in cardiac research and care, and lure and sustain the brightest minds, said Linda Goldsack, the centre’s campaign chair. She adds it will also facilitate specialized training of medical professionals, and support a multi-purpose operating room with state of the art equipment. 

“Peter and Melanie’s new gifts build on their tremendous support over the 18 years they have been involved in creating a world-class cardiac centre,” said UHN’s president and CEO Robert Bell, in a Nov.24 statement, announcing the campaign’s launch.

To date, Barrick’s CEO and his wife have invested $65 million in the heart centre. They made their initial $6-million donation in 1997 to get the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre up and running. In the ensuing years, they gave another $6 million, followed by $35 million in 2006.     

“It didn’t take much more than a heart beat for Melanie and me to support the cardiac centre again,” stated Munk. “This facility ­­- and more importantly the excellence and innovation of its caring professionals – has put Canada’s cardiac care on the world map.”

Munk became interested in healthcare, more particularly UHN, through a good friend of his who was on the network’s board, and subsequently died of heart disease, said Munk’s spokesperson Vince Borg. Munk’s own father and grandfather also passed away from cardiac disease.

When Munk realized that UHN wanted to establish a serious leading cardiac centre in Canada, he just got enamored with their mission, explained Borg.  

“The [$18 million] donation is really an investment in supporting the efforts and innovations at the cardiac centre, and the recruitment and retention of the very best cardiac talent there which will allow those surgeons to develop research that will improve cardiac care not only in Toronto and Canada, but around the world,” said Borg.  

Munk’s other philanthropic focus has been the University of Toronto, where he completed his electrical engineering degree in 1957. Last year, he donated $35 million to U of T’s Munk School of Global Affairs.