HAMILTON – The family of the late Owen Boris, founder of Mountain Cablevision, made a $6 million donation to alcohol addiction research at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton on Tuesday, the largest gift to research that the hospital has ever received.
The Boris family has a heartrending but special connection to alcohol addiction, as Owen’s youngest son Peter struggled for much of his youth and adult life with alcohol addiction. Peter passed away two years ago at the age of 44.
“Dad was captivated by the idea that if we could map out the brain, we could perhaps better understand the mechanisms that affect addiction-related behaviour,” said Leslie Boris, Owen’s eldest son, in a statement. “Our father and our family had already committed to this gift to St. Joseph’s. We were working out the details of today’s announcement when Dad died…but we all knew that he would’ve wanted us to carry on, to make this important announcement, both for him, and for my brother Peter.”
St. Joseph’s Healthcare said that the endowment will be split in to two distinct, but related purposes:
– $3 million will be used to establish ‘The Peter Boris Chair in Alcohol Addiction Research’, which will seek to expand the boundaries of knowledge surrounding alcohol use disorders and addictions in the hopes of improving the clinical care and outcomes of those living with the condition. St. Joseph’s will initiate a recruitment process for an international lead in addiction research to hold the appointment.
– $3 million will be used to create ‘The Peter Boris Alcohol Addiction Research Centre’ at St. Joseph’s new West 5th Campus, which will foster the link between research and clinical care of people living with addiction.
“The effects of alcohol addiction on individuals and their families are devastating”, said Dr. Robert Zipursky, vice-president of mental health and addiction services at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton and chair of psychiatry and behavioural neurosciences at McMaster University. “The importance of a gift like this, one that will help us to better understand alcohol addiction so that we can treat it more effectively, will certainly have an impact on those living with alcohol addiction in our community as well as provincially and nationally.”
St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton is an acute care, teaching and research hospital with three sites and is affiliated with the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University and Mohawk College. It is the regional lead for mental health and addiction services serving a collective population of almost 2 million people.
