Good morning. Volunteers are a powerful and underappreciated engine of Canada’s health systems. The Globe is launching a series on those unpaid helpers, starting with the women filling the gaps at Toronto’s SickKids. More on that below, along with intergenerational friendships and the King’s taxes.
Today’s headlines
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Priti Sachdeva, a member of the Women’s Auxiliary Volunteers, at the SickKids Hospital in Toronto last week. The volunteers sew items like baby blankets and surgeon’s caps.Laura Proctor/The Globe and Mail
HEALTH
The women who volunteer at SickKids
Good morning, I’m Jennifer Yang, a health science reporter with The Globe and Mail.
In 2023, 12,589 children underwent surgical procedures at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, Canada’s biggest pediatric health centre. One of them was my daughter.
My second child was born with serious medical issues, undergoing her first surgery at three months old. I remember thinking how adorably clueless she looked as she was being wheeled into the operating room – then feeling instantly unravelled as soon as she disappeared behind those doors. My sweet tiny baby, just three months outside my body, was about to be cut open with a scalpel.
But when I reached the waiting room, I began to feel grounded again. My husband and I were greeted by two retirement-aged women, who registered us and walked us through next steps. Their faces are blurred in my memory now but I can still feel their warm, maternal presence. And I remember how they gently acknowledged my welling eyes with empathetic smiles, knowing better than to ask, “Are you okay?” Of course I wasn’t, and that question would have only burst the dam.
Later, I was surprised to learn that the women working in the waiting room were not paid staff. They were volunteers with the Women’s Auxiliary, a group I’d never heard of before. I started noticing their bright, turquoise jackets all over the hospital, and grew curious about who they were.
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In their bright turquoise jackets, WAV members can be spotted all over the hospital lending a helping hand.Laura Proctor/The Globe and Mail
So when my editor at The Globe requested story pitches for a summer series on health care volunteers, I knew I wanted to write about the Women’s Auxiliary Volunteers. My reporting brought me all over the hospital, where the volunteers serve a dozen different roles and services, and into the auxiliary’s basement headquarters, where they keep their sewing machines, bravery beads and stocks for the gift shop.
As a fundraising group, the Women’s Auxiliary is a force, raising more than $23-million for the hospital since 1993. And as a volunteer organization, they provide a range of services that aren’t medical in nature but can be healing nevertheless: supplying toys to cancer patients; bringing library books to children stuck in their beds; noticing a parent who’s struggling, and giving them a snack or shoulder to cry on.
“SickKids would be a shadow of the great place that it is without the volunteer force that comes in every day,” neurosurgeon James Rutka told me.
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Shannon Ferrier, a volunteer with the Women’s Auxiliary, works on a sewing machine.Laura Proctor/The Globe and Mail
There are worrying signs, however, that Canadian health care volunteers are coming under strain. The most recent Statistics Canada data show that between 2018 and 2023, volunteer rates declined across the country and volunteer hours were particularly hard hit in the hospital sector, plunging by nearly 50 per cent. Women – the predominant volunteer work force in health systems – also saw their volunteering hours drop across all sectors by 21 per cent.
So far, SickKids’ Women’s Auxiliary appears to be facing these headwinds with the same sturdy passion that’s ensured their survival over 76 years. You can read more about the group in my piece published today – the first instalment of Care Between the Lines, The Globe’s summer series profiling the work of Canada’s health care volunteers.
THE SHOT
‘The stories we mainly hear are of struggle … we don’t really get to see the joy they have in their lives’
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With 43 years between them, Alisha Zaida Ali and leZlie lee kam consider each other chosen family.DUANE COLE/The Globe and Mail
Intergenerational friendships are a rich source of solidarity – and fun – in the LGBTQ community. From mentorships, dialogue groups and storytelling workshops to a groundswell of art introducing young people to historic queer and trans icons, there is growing appreciation for spending time among those of different generations.
THE WRAP
What else we’re following
Trade: Prime Minister Carney said Canada must be ready to cut a deal on the USMCA trade pact if it arises, pushing back on comments from the U.S. ambassador saying the countries were nowhere close to an agreement.
Housing: Carney also defended a $1.45-billion plan to convert B.C. condo units to affordable housing, saying the federal government will cover about 10 per cent of that figure.
Abroad: King Charles III disclosed his tax bill for the first time, revealing that he paid almost $60-million over three years.
For biz whizzes: The Globe and Mail put together a quiz featuring the biggest Canadian economics stories of the year.
For kicks: In Labrador, an unlikely soccer town hosts its own World Cup.
Continental drift: Canada has been officially cleared to take part in the Eurovision song contest.
Puzzles
The Globe’s giant Canada Day crossword
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Jaimie Shelton/The Globe and Mail
The Globe’s giant crossword is back. Test your mental mettle with a brain-twisting assortment of word, logic and number puzzles by Fraser Simpson.