To maximize your impact, we focus our health priorities to ensure philanthropic support goes where it’s needed most – on health issues facing vulnerable and under-served populations, and on the unmet needs of communities. Our six health priorities include: seniors health and wellbeing, mental health and addiction, rural health, palliative care, women and children’s health, and spiritual care and mission.
Seniors' Health & Wellbeing
Protecting and improving the health and wellbeing of seniors in our province is of fundamental importance. It’s an investment that not only ensures the best possible care for our parents, grandparents and elders today, but also helps innovate seniors care that will benefit all of us as we age.
The population of seniors in our province continues to rise faster than all other age groups, bringing complex health needs that range from acute hospital care to continuing care, supportive living, rehabilitation needs, and palliative and end-of-life care. We need your help to keep up with the demand and take bold steps to continue transforming seniors' care.
Seniors' Acute Care
Your support can directly impact thousands of seniors every year who rely on Covenant’s hospitals and continuing care facilities for their acute health needs, such as serious injuries, complex illnesses, geriatric mental health, and end-of-life care.
With your help, we can continue to equip Covenant’s health teams with leading-edge technology, research and training that goes beyond what the government provides to ensure we keep up with medical advancements that improve patient outcomes and save lives.
Seniors' Continuing Care
With your support, we can help seniors maintain greater independence, stay in their homes and connected to their communities as long as they can, and enjoy the best health and quality of life possible. When you partner with us, you can impact seniors at 17 sites in nine communities across Alberta, providing:
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- Innovative technology such as virtual reality goggles that lift seniors’ spirits as they travel the world from the comfort of their continuing care home
- Assisted living supports such as specialized beds, tub rooms and lifts that provide greater comfort, safety and dignity in care
- Enhanced care spaces for recreational activities such as group exercise, drum circles and animal therapy to help seniors keep physically and mentally active and break down social isolation
- Accessibility-equipped minibuses and bikes that keep seniors active and connected to their community
- Memory and dementia care programs that can foster socialization and reduce agitation
Palliative Care
We’re privileged to support patients and families on their most difficult journey as they face the realities of a serious or terminal illness and the possibility of losing a loved one. With 96 palliative beds across Alberta, the goal of Covenant’s internationally recognized palliative care program is to relieve symptoms, stress and pain to help people live as well as possible.
Together, we can continue to invest in the Palliative Institute located at the Grey Nuns, which bring experts together to focus on research, programs, planning and education to improve the quality of life for palliative patients across our province. Your support will also ensure patients and families have access to the holistic daily care they need, whether they’re in one of Covenant’s hospitals, continuing care facilities, or receiving care in their community through the in-home palliative bed program.
Mental Health & Addiction
Covenant Health is one of our province’s leading providers of mental health services, transforming care for Albertans with mental illness and addiction to enable them to live with dignity and hope as connected members of their community.
With mental illness affecting one in five Albertans during their lifetime, your support can make a life-changing difference for thousands of patients of all ages and their families every year.
From enhancing the purpose-built mental health unit at the new Misericordia ER, to advancing seniors care at Villa Caritas – Alberta’s only stand-alone geriatric mental health hospital – your generosity will impact initiatives that demonstrate there’s a difference between receiving care and being cared for.
Rural Care
When you invest in rural health, you help address unmet needs in communities, reduce medical transfers and costs, enable families to stay close to home for greater support, and improve patient and resident satisfaction and health outcomes.
Outcomes like advancing care for Albertans with respiratory disease – one of the top five causes of death for Canadians. With support from community partners like you, we invested in piloting and growing the innovative Breathe Easy Program that helps return Albertans with chronic lung disease to their highest possible functional capacity and quality of life, while also decreasing emergency visits and hospitalization. Breathe Easy started at the Edmonton General and now serves patients in 20+ communities across Alberta via telehealth.
Women & Children's Health
Women's Health
Historical gaps in women’s health research and clinical treatment of women have negatively impacted the opportunity for women worldwide to live their healthiest lives possible. Your support can help create better equity of care, advancing the health and wellbeing of women in our province today and for generations to come.
Enhancing care for women in areas such as maternity, menopause, osteoporosis and heart health at the Misericordia and Grey Nuns hospitals and advancing breast cancer care at the Misericordia are just several examples of the difference you can make. With the support of community partners like you, we’ve helped the Misericordia become a centre of excellence for breast cancer, performing the highest rate of same-day mastectomies in the province and completing over 70% of all reconstructive breast surgeries for the Edmonton area and Northern Alberta combined. But there’s still so much we can do together!
Children's Health
Your support can impact thousands of children every year – from the tiniest babies needing critical care, to kids needing emergency room visits, vulnerable children experiencing food insecurity and high-risk teens facing mental illness, violence and substance misuse.
With your help, we can invest in family centered programs and spaces, and better equip Covenant’s frontline teams as they work hard every year to:
- Deliver over 8,300 babies – 1 in 5 babies born in Alberta
- Care for over 2,500 critically ill babies in the NICUs at the Grey Nuns and Misericordia hospitals
- Provide trauma-informed care to over 2,000 kids and youth at the Foster Care Clinic at the Grey Nuns
- Serve over 10,000 children through the Child Health Clinic at the Grey Nuns and Misericordia
- Deliver bagged lunches for hundreds of school kids facing food insecurity in Calgary and southern Alberta with the help of continuing care residents who volunteer to prepare meals
Spiritual Care & Mission
Spiritual health is as important as our physical and mental health to our wellbeing. It can help us achieve peace and find hope and comfort — especially in the hardest medical times when we’re at our most vulnerable.
Your generosity can help ensure multi-faith spiritual care for thousands of patients, residents and families every year. This includes helping fund bereavement support for families, end-of-life care for patients, and onsite worship spaces and supplies for spiritual services, care and rituals such as prayers, smudges, sacraments and visits from diverse faith leaders and volunteers.
With your help, we support Covenant Health, Covenant Care and Covenant Living can lead new approaches to care, innovate solutions to system pressures and gaps in service, and address the changing health needs of Albertans now and into the future.
At the 21 hospitals and continuing care sites we support across Alberta, your generosity helps to fund:
- State-of-the-art equipment and training
- Enhanced care spaces
- Specialized programs
- Leading-edge research and innovation
Please give generously today to help us invest in supporting excellence in care where you live.
Thank you for helping us transform health care across our province for Covenant's patients, residents and families!