Sco­tia­bank has poured an ad­di­tion­al $1 mil­lion dol­lars in­to the Sick­Kids-Caribbean Ini­tia­tive (SCI), which is set to en­ter its sec­ond phase.

SCI is aimed at im­prov­ing the di­ag­no­sis and sub­se­quent man­age­ment of pae­di­atric pa­tients with can­cer and blood dis­or­ders, as well as pro­vid­ing train­ing and ed­u­ca­tion in the ar­eas of haema­tol­ogy/on­col­o­gy, nurs­ing, and lab­o­ra­to­ry ser­vices.

It was cre­at­ed with the sup­port of Sick­Kids Foun­da­tion in part­ner­ship with the Sick­Kids Cen­tre for Glob­al Child Health, the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), Min­istries of Health and key hos­pi­tals and in­sti­tu­tions in The Ba­hamas, Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica, St Lu­cia, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Sco­tia­bank had fund­ed the ini­tia­tive to im­prove ac­cess to health ser­vices for chil­dren in the Caribbean. Sco­tia­bank’s in­volve­ment in Phase 1 as the main telemed­i­cine part­ner, al­lowed for the com­ple­tion of 7 telemed­i­cine fa­cil­i­ties across the re­gion with Trinidad and To­ba­go cur­rent­ly ben­e­fit­ing through The Wendy Fitzwilliam Pae­di­atric Hos­pi­tal, Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Champs Fleurs.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, Sco­tia­bank con­firmed that Phase 2 of the ini­tia­tive, which is set to run un­til March 1, 2022, will re­ceive an ad­di­tion­al $1 mil­lion Cana­di­an dol­lars from Sco­tia­bank.

Anya Schnoor, Ex­ec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent, Caribbean, Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and Uruguay, Sco­tia­bank said, “We’re pleased that our sup­port for the SCI has en­hanced ac­cess to crit­i­cal care for chil­dren in the Caribbean with can­cer and blood dis­or­ders.”

She con­tin­ued, “Guid­ed by our core pur­pose—For Every Fu­ture, we want to help young peo­ple lead ful­fill­ing lives. The SCI has al­so in­creased the ca­pac­i­ty of doc­tors and nurs­es to pro­vide time­ly, ac­cu­rate di­ag­no­sis and high-qual­i­ty fol­low-up care, help­ing en­sure fu­ture pae­di­atric pa­tients can ben­e­fit.”

In spite of the many chal­lenges of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the SCI has helped achieve the com­ple­tion of 618 case con­sul­ta­tions, 41 nurs­es, 5 Caribbean pae­di­a­tri­cians trained or train­ing in haema­tol­ogy/on­col­o­gy, 504 spe­cialised di­ag­nos­tic tests for pa­tients di­ag­nosed with leukaemia and116,190 new­born sick­le cell dis­ease screen­ing tests

Dr Curt Bod­kyn, Pae­di­atric On­col­o­gist and SCI co-lead physi­cian rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Trinidad and To­ba­go said, “The ex­cel­lent foun­da­tion laid by the SCI col­lab­o­ra­tion has en­sured that the care for chil­dren with can­cer and blood dis­or­ders in the Caribbean re­gion is on a sure foot­ing, both dur­ing this COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and be­yond.”

Gayle Pa­zos­, Se­nior Vice Pres­i­dent and Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor, Sco­tia­bank Trinidad and To­ba­go added, “The progress the SCI has made to date is com­mend­able. There have been sev­er­al doc­tors and nurs­es from across the re­gion, in­clud­ing from here in Trinidad and To­ba­go who have un­der­gone pae­di­atric haema­tol­ogy/on­col­o­gy train­ing and even fel­low­ships at Sick­Kids, there­by equip­ping us with ex­perts to pro­vide bet­ter health care, more pre­cise di­ag­noses and greater re­cov­ery rates of chil­dren di­ag­nosed with can­cer and blood dis­or­ders. More­over, there is a co­hort of 14 nurs­es who have par­tic­i­pat­ed in the pro­gramme, nav­i­gat­ing learn­ing in the COVID-19 con­text and are set to grad­u­ate this month.”