![]() Action came swiftly: about a year later, Myers was in front of the cameras. Savage says she was first contacted by Myers’s financial advisor, who told her that his client wanted to make a significant donation. “If you had asked people a year ago who they thought might donate $25 million to Lions Gate Hospital,” says Savage, “I don’t think anybody would have mentioned Paul Myers.” In 2005, Jimmy Pattison donated $5 million for a new emergency department at Lions Gate, and in 2011 Robert and Greta Ho donated $10 million to establish the Hope Centre. (From left) Mike Nader, VCH-Coastal chief operating officer Lions Gate Hospital Foundation president Judy Savage and Paul MyersĪccording to Savage, very large donations like Myers’s are more frequent in recent years-a trend she attributes to an aging demographic that has accumulated wealth and wants to leave a legacy. (The existing tower has been renamed the Paul Myers Tower, with that name transferring to the new one as well.) Ho Psychiatry and Education Centre (the Hope Centre), while phase two will be a new outpatient care centre and atrium. The new modern facility will be the third phase of a redevelopment plan phase one of the plan was the recently completed Greta and Robert H.N. There is no air conditioning on most floors, and it has as many as four patients in a room, making the spread of infection very difficult to contain. He intimately understands the problems of aging infrastructure that the current patient tower, now 55 years old, suffers. It’s easy to see why Myers-whose company has worked on many hospitals, including additions at Lions Gate-chose a brand-new building as the target of his philanthropy. Myers’s $25 million is the first instalment toward a new $100-million patient care facility at the hospital. Many people even told Savage that they would encourage their children to become plumbers. The impact of the unexpected gift from this self-described “little plumber” was immediate: for weeks after the press conference, people came into the foundation’s office and made donations, crediting Myers as the inspiration. There was no similar question about what Paul Myers did for Lions Gate. “I’m standing out there and I thought, ‘What the hell have I done to myself?’” Myers dutifully went back to his truck, drove to the hospital and got wired for the cameras all over again. “Then she phoned and said, ‘Sorry, Paul, you’ve got to get back here: CBC was late and they want to make a live television broadcast.’” “When the nightmare was over, I climbed into my truck and headed back to the office,” he recalls from the corner suite of Keith Plumbing in North Vancouver. ![]() Savage had suggested that he park his yellow company truck at the hospital so it was visible for the cameras. He talked about wanting to give back to the community where he had lived for 80 years, and at one point was overcome with tears. So there he was inside a large room at the hospital on a Thursday morning last September, facing a throng of reporters wielding television cameras and tape recorders, delivering a speech that Savage had written for him. Myers considers Savage “a terrific woman,” and reluctantly agreed. hospital foundation-would help Lions Gate draw attention to its fundraising campaign. But Judy Savage, president of the Lions Gate Hospital Foundation, convinced him that a press conference about his gift-the largest-ever individual donation to a B.C. Paul Myers did not want any “hullabaloo” made over his $25-million donation to a new patient care centre at Lions Gate Hospital in North Vancouver. The 82-year-old owner of Keith Plumbing and Heating doesn’t like speaking in public. Paul Myers may not have the profile of a Jimmy Pattison or Bob Lee, but the unprecedented donation from the (until now) unknown businessman is inspiring a whole new generation of givers EMPIRE OF PIPES | Paul Myers stands near the Keith Plumbing and Heating office on the North Vancouver waterfront
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