Stephen J. Kelly was appointed Chair of the Board of Directors on September 30th at the Foundation’s 2024-2025 Annual General Meeting, succeeding Arthur Wechsler. The Foundation also thanked Mario Rigante for his service and welcomed new Board members George Alexopoulos and Hany Tawfik.
The first time Stephen Kelly walked through the doors of St. Mary’s Hospital Centre was on Remembrance Day 2013.
After a sudden bout of shortness of breath – unexpected for a healthy, active 40-something – he visited his doctor, who insisted he go to a hospital immediately. The doctor suggested St. Mary’s, noting that the small community hospital might be less busy on a statutory holiday.
Within 30 minutes of arrival, Stephen was admitted to the Emergency Department and diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism – a blood clot blocking an artery in the lung that can be life-threatening.
“From the moment I set foot at St. Mary’s, I felt not only well cared for medically, but also an incredible sense of caring and community from everyone who worked there – something I had never experienced in a health institution before,” recalls the father of three.
He was put on heavy blood thinners and monitored in the ED, which was under renovation at the time. Dr. Todd McConnell, the Hospital’s then-physician-in-chief, checked on him regularly and conducted a number of tests to try and understand the cause of the embolism. While the clot cleared and he was released, those tests would lead him to back to St Mary’s sooner than expected.
“Even though I was in a bed in the middle of a construction zone for three and a half days, I left thinking, ‘Wow, what an exceptional place.'”
Another Unexpected Health Scare
A few weeks later, those tests revealed that Stephen had hairy cell leukemia, a rare and slow-growing cancer of the blood.
He was introduced to Dr. Joan Zidulka in the Oncology Department. Dr Zidulka asked him and his wife to come to the hospital to deliver the difficult news in person. While the leukemia would remain a lifelong condition, she reassured them it was a very treatable form of cancer and offered the warm and personal support and guidance that St Mary’s is so well known for.
Over the following months, Stephen underwent chemotherapy and returned regularly to St. Mary’s for follow-ups and psychological counselling, which he found invaluable. Dr. Zidulka was a tremendous ally throughout. He still remembers her phone call in April 2014, announcing that the treatment had been successful.
Filled with gratitude, he told Dr. Zidulka how exceptional his experience had been – how beautiful a community institution he had found St. Mary’s to be. Despite his demanding schedule running a national corporate legal practice and raising three children, he offered to “do whatever [she] want[s] me to do for this Hospital – if there is anything I can do.”
Dr. Zidulka introduced him to Cynda Heward, the Foundation’s then-President and CEO, the following week. Things took off from there.
From Grateful Patient to Fierce Advocate
Stephen joined the Foundation’s Ball Committee in 2014 and the Board of Directors in 2019. He chaired the fundraising committee for the Foundation’s flagship gala, the St. Mary’s Ball, in 2019 and 2020. At the 2019 event, he delivered a moving speech recounting his patient experience and thanked Dr. Zidulka, who was in the audience and was soon retiring. The moment prompted a standing ovation.
Stephen J. Kelly
Dr. Joan Zidulka
Today, he is proud to lead the Foundation’s Board of Directors as St. Mary’s enters its Next Century of Care.
As public funding becomes increasingly constrained, philanthropy plays an ever-growing role in enhancing patient care. Stephen believes the Foundation’s role is “to raise and deploy funds to make this hospital a place where people can continue to experience the exceptional patient care that we are known for and that remains a highly attractive work environment for the incredible doctors, nurses and staff who work here. A place that reflects their commitment and excellence.”
Above all, his focus is to build on – and safeguard – St. Mary’s extraordinary legacy.
“There’s a reason this smaller community hospital has been around for over 100 years,” he says. “Whether in the public or private sector, places don’t survive that long unless they have heart, devotion, people, community, and a desire to be the best. St. Mary’s has been thriving for over a century as an absolute centre of excellence in Montréal. There’s no reason we can’t build on that and keep making it better.”
