McCaigs donate $1-million to area hospitals

Announced within St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital’s Atrium on Tuesday morning, Bob McCaig and his wife Janet Taylor-McCaig donated a total of $1-million to hospitals serving Elgin County and St. Thomas residents. Residing just west of St. Thomas, the couple shared a jovial moment at the podium after something Mr. McCaig said during his remarks. “I got used to giving big amounts away when I got married a second time,” he quipped. Half of the donation, or $500,000, went to the STEGH Foundation and the other half to the London Health Sciences Foundation. Mr. McCaig is the former owner of Green Lane Landfill that was sold to the City of Toronto several years ago. The landfill still receives solid waste from local municipalities including Aylmer, Malahide, Bayham, St. Thomas and Central Elgin. The donation was earmarked to “strengthen the partnership between STEGH and London Health Sciences Centre.” Often times, patients needing specialized tertiary care start their treatment at LHSC and later receive secondary care at STEGH. One example of this was given by breast cancer patient Rae-Ann Williams of St. Thomas who had a mastectomy at LHSC and started her after surgery radiation treatment there before moving on to have her chemotherapy treatment done at STEGH. Mr. McCaig also provided an example of the health care partnership between the two hospitals. A number of years ago he was diagnosed with a form of cancer on his cheek and he received his initial treatment at LHSC and secondary treatment later at STEGH.