Responding to Royal Columbian Hospital’s greatest needs
When life changes in an instant, patients from across British Columbia turn to Royal Columbian Hospital. They arrive with life-threatening injuries, heart attacks, strokes, complex pregnancies, serious illnesses, and conditions that require highly specialized care.
In these critical moments, exceptional caregivers respond with skill and experience. But they also need advanced technology, innovative approaches, and the flexibility to respond as patient needs evolve.
The opening of the Jim Pattison Acute Care Tower on May 31, 2026, marked the beginning of a new era of care at Royal Columbian. With expanded capacity, advanced technology, and purpose-built spaces, the new tower is transforming how care is delivered to some of the province’s most seriously ill and injured patients.
But opening a new building is not the end of Royal Columbian’s transformation. It is a foundation for what comes next.
Through your philanthropy, you provide flexible funding that can be directed to the hospital’s most important emerging priorities. This support helps caregivers introduce promising technologies, develop new ideas, improve the patient experience, and strengthen the teams at the heart of care.
Government funding plays a critical role in sustaining healthcare and making major redevelopment possible. Philanthropy helps Royal Columbian move further and faster, bringing innovation into patient care sooner than might otherwise be possible. What begins as a donor-supported idea, pilot project, or piece of technology can be evaluated, refined, and, when successful, adopted more broadly as part of the way care is delivered.
By supporting Royal Columbian’s greatest needs, donors help caregivers respond to today’s challenges while advancing the future of care.
Why we need you
Royal Columbian Hospital is undergoing one of the largest government-funded healthcare redevelopments in British Columbia’s history.
The Jim Pattison Acute Care Tower is the centrepiece of that transformation. It has expanded Royal Columbian’s ability to deliver advanced, specialized care to patients from across the Fraser Health region and the province.
Yet healthcare does not stand still.
Rising to this challenge is vital. The number of people in our community suffering one or more serious chronic conditions, such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes, is on the rise. By 2030, the population our hospital serves is expected to reach 2.4 million, a further increase of close to 200,000 from 2025. As our population increases and ages, medical knowledge, technology, and approaches to care are also advancing rapidly.
A modern hospital must be able to evolve with them.
The facilities and core services supported through public funding provide the essential foundation for care. Donors help build on that foundation by creating room for innovation: the specialized equipment that introduces a new procedure, the pilot project that tests a better patient experience, the research that changes clinical practice, or the education that enables caregivers to use new techniques safely and effectively.
In this way, philanthropy is not separate from the hospital’s transformation. It helps sustain its momentum.
The opening of the Jim Pattison Acute Care Tower has created an extraordinary platform for the future. Donors help ensure Royal Columbian can continue filling that platform with the ideas, tools, and expertise that will define the next generation of care.
Why philanthropy matters
Government funding provides the foundation for healthcare, supporting hospital operations, essential services, staffing, and major capital redevelopment projects such as the Jim Pattison Acute Care Tower. The new tower has expanded Royal Columbian Hospital's capacity and created modern spaces designed to support the future of critical and specialized care.
Yet healthcare is constantly evolving. New technologies emerge. Patient volumes grow. Clinical practices advance. Unexpected challenges arise. Hospitals must be ready to respond not only to today's needs, but also to opportunities and demands that cannot always be predicted years in advance.
This is where philanthropy makes a unique difference.
Donor support provides the flexibility to respond quickly when urgent needs emerge and opportunities to improve care arise. It allows Royal Columbian Hospital to move faster, adapting to changing circumstances and equipping caregivers with the tools, technology, training, and resources they need to deliver the best possible outcomes for patients.
Throughout Royal Columbian's history, philanthropic support has helped introduce new technologies, advance research, support quality improvement initiatives, enhance the patient and family experience, and strengthen the teams delivering care. In many cases, donor funding has provided the critical first investment needed to bring promising ideas into practice and evaluate their potential impact.
This flexibility has never been more important. As one of British Columbia's leading critical care hospitals, Royal Columbian cares for patients with increasingly complex needs while serving a rapidly growing population. The opening of the Jim Pattison Acute Care Tower marks a transformative step forward, but the work of advancing care does not stop with the opening of a building. New challenges and opportunities will continue to emerge.
Philanthropy ensures Royal Columbian is ready to meet them.
Whether responding to an urgent clinical need, introducing a promising new technology, supporting a pilot project, or helping caregivers explore better ways of delivering care, donor support allows the hospital to act when action can make the greatest difference.