Republic Bank donates TT$5.3m to help sick children in Caribbean

(Trinidad Express) Republic Bank has donated CDN$1 million (TT$5.3 million) to the Canadian Hospital for Sick Children to assist in the provision of treatment to children across the Caribbean.

This was announced yesterday during the launch of the SickKids Caribbean Initiative at the Radisson Hotel, Wrightson Road, Port of Spain.

The SickKids Foundation, an initiative of the hospital, is the largest funder of child health research, learning and care in Canada.

To date, the hospital has worked with six Caribbean countries—The Bahamas, Barbados, St Vincent and the Grenadines, St Lucia and T&T—to understand the reality for children suffering with cancer and blood disorders.

One of the main goals of the SickKids Caribbean Initiative is to implement universal newborn screening for sickle cell disease in six Caribbean countries.

Speaking at the launch, Canadian High Commissioner Gerard Latulippe expressed gratitude for the contribution and said the aim was to improve the survival rate of Caribbean children born with cancer and other blood disorders.

Children born with leukemia and other cancers in the Caribbean have a less than 50 per cent chance of survival, he said, due to a lack of proper diagnostics and treatment. He compared this to an 80 to 90 per cent survival rate in Canada.

“It is disheartening to know that in Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean, children continue to die every day to the scourge of cancer,” he said.

The fund, he said, will offer an avenue for medical treatment to Caribbean children which, under normal circumstances, would not be attainable.

Latulippe called on other corporate entities to partner with the SickKids Foundation to ensure children in need of treatment are given a fighting chance.