Grow Beyond. With you, we are aiming to transform the lives of children across Quebec by 2028. The medical revolution is already underway at CHU Sainte-Justine as it enters the era of precision healthcare to realize every child’s greatest dream: to be cured. Together, let’s grow beyond and give every child the chance to grow up healthy in a world where the future is a given and there’s no such thing as impossible.
Grow Beyond
Featuring 11-year-old Juliette, a real patient, her grandmother, and the dedicated caregivers at Sainte-Justine, the video offers an inside look at what goes on within the hospital’s walls. It reaches out and touches the hearts of people across the province.
12,775: that’s how many epileptic seizures Juliette experienced from birth until the age of 6. Today, she’s thriving. Using neurosurgical laser equipment acquired thanks to the generosity of donors like you, the teams at Sainte-Justine successfully eliminated the pseudotumour in her brain that was causing her seizures, radically changing her young life.
Sainte-Justine gave us back the real Juliette.
Childhood the way it should be
Children are precious. We have a duty to transform every life for the better, to build our collective future, and to nurture an ambitious vision for future generations. Growing beyond means believing in the importance of childhood.
Today, with science, data, and collaboration, the teams at CHU Sainte-Justine are leading the way to a brighter future. And with the support of kind-hearted people like you, we can grow beyond the impossible to redefine what’s possible.
SANDRO was born without a tibia, a rare condition affecting 1 in a million children. Thanks to a groundbreaking prosthetic, he’s now growing up with at least a million reasons to love running.
The medical revolution
is underway.
ÉLIZABETH was having more than 30 epileptic episodes a day after a stroke. Thanks to a successful surgery, the only episodes she has now are the tantrums every child throws with their parents.
The medical revolution
is underway.
LOUIS-CHARLES was born prematurely at 30 weeks with a kidney anomaly. His kidney might be monitored remotely from Rouyn-Noranda, but his heart will always be at Sainte-Justine.
The medical revolution
is underway.
LILY-ROSE had a liver tumor at just 18 months old. In a high-risk, first-of-its-kind operation in Quebec, 80% of her liver was removed, giving her 100% of her life back.
The medical revolution
is underway.
Giving children the chance to grow up
Growing beyond means giving children the chance to grow up. It means helping every child reclaim the childhood they deserve. Read on to learn more about the medical revolution underway at Sainte-Justine and the inspiring stories of patients whose lives have been changed by the generosity of donors like you.
Emmy, saved in her mother’s womb
At the 20-week mark of her pregnancy, Marie-Pier learned that her baby, Emmy, had lymphatic fluid building up around her lungs. Thanks to essential intrauterine surgical tools acquired with your support, Emmy was able to undergo surgery while still in her mother’s womb. A needle was used to gently place two drains in her chest.
“Your baby might not make it.” On June 27, 2019, when Marie-Pier and Daniel were expecting their third child, the doctors at CHU de Québec-Université Laval prepared them for the worst. They were both floored. Worried sick. And feeling just about every other emotion imaginable. A second ultrasound at Marie-Pier’s request showed that the liquid in Emmy’s chest had quadrupled in volume.
For Dr. François Audibert, a specialist in fetal therapy at Sainte-Justine, the diagnosis was clear. He confirmed that Emmy had a type of pleural effusion known as chylothorax. In other words, her thoracic duct had not formed properly, and her lungs and heart were compromised as a result. This condition is often fatal. They needed to take immediate action. Marie-Pier checked into Sainte-Justine the next morning.
Thanks to the specialized surgical equipment you support at Sainte-Justine, Emmy underwent fetal surgery at 22 weeks’ gestation. They carefully inserted a needle into her chest to place two shunts that would drain the fluid.
The procedure worked! Emmy was born full-term 16 weeks later. She was the picture of health.
Thank you for doing your part to make sure Sainte-Justine has the cutting-edge expertise to provide life‑changing care to mothers and children across the province.
Sandro walks with confidence thanks to your generosity
Sandro has a condition known as tibial hemimelia. It is such a rare congenital anomaly that it affects only one child in a million. He was born without a right shinbone. But thanks to you and the entire community of kind, caring people at Sainte-Justine, he can now get around wherever he wants to go, quick as a flash!
After a period of convalescence following the amputation of his foot and the reconstruction of his leg, Sainte-Justine and the Centre de readaptation Marie Enfant set out to create and manufacture a prosthetic limb for Sandro — the first one of its kind. Given the lack of ligaments in his knee, several components had to be worked into the design to ensure the required stability for him to walk. This innovation was developed at Sainte-Justine because of the support of donors like you. By the time he was 18 months old, Sandro had everything he needed to take on the world.
Today, at three and a half, he can walk, run and hop just like any other child his age.
This victory for the future of children like Sandro is a tangible example of the groundbreaking impact you have made in pediatric health and rehabilitation in recent years.
Thank you for doing your part to change children’s lives for the better.
Élizabeth’s delicate procedure
At CHU Sainte-Justine, life-saving interventions happen every day, thanks to the cutting-edge expertise you support. Because her epilepsy was not responding to medication, Élizabeth underwent a hemispherectomy, the most invasive neurosurgical procedure. The surgery required more than 12 hours and a team of around 30 specialists to disconnect the right hemisphere of her brain.
Élizabeth’s story with Sainte-Justine starts with her birth. She came into the world with her intestines outside of her body. This was followed by a perinatal stroke and the onset of chronic seizures — up to 30 a day.
After she didn’t respond to drug therapy, Élizabeth was scheduled for a hemispherectomy, the most complex operation a neurosurgeon can perform.
“When the nurse left with my daughter, I didn’t know if I’d ever see her alive again,” her mother recalls with emotion.
On October 16, 2023, some 30 professionals were on hand for the procedure that was coordinated by Dr. Hadjinicolaou and neurosurgeon Alexander Weil. A little over 12 hours later, she was wheeled back out again. The operation was a success.
Élizabeth’s progress since then has been awe-inspiring: her seizures have stopped, she is learning new words, she can stand up by herself, and she is a bundle of smiles.
Her doctors and parents are very hopeful about what’s next, thanks to you and your support for avant-garde procedures that transform young lives. Like you, the professionals at Sainte-Justine put their heart into everything they do.
Thank you for helping to build a better future for our children.
Louis-Charles’ giant steps forward
A prenatal morphological ultrasound revealed that Louis-Charles’ right kidney was abnormally dark, and his umbilical cord was abnormal. Weekly follow-ups alternating between Abitibi-Témiscamingue and Montreal were arranged, and at 29 weeks, labour was induced. Now back at home in Rouyn-Noranda, Louis-Charles is doing well and continues to be supported by the extended Sainte-Justine family, which includes you.
Marilou and Francis know all too well how fragile life can be.
In 2023, the couple from Rouyn-Noranda were overjoyed to learn they were expecting twins. But 12 weeks into the pregnancy, one of the two hearts grew silent. In the wake of this unfathomable loss, they decided to name their baby Louis-Charles instead of Louis to honour the sibling he would never know.
Soon afterward, Louis-Charles’s right kidney showed up darker on a sonogram than his doctors would have liked. Next stop: Sainte-Justine. The specialists weren’t as worried about the dysplastic kidney as they were about the anomalies in his umbilical cord. These anomalies increased the risk of thrombosis, a life-threatening blood clot.
Weekly checkups were scheduled in Abitibi-Témiscamingue and Montreal on an alternating basis. At 29 weeks, after a clot was detected, Marilou was immediately induced at Sainte-Justine.
“Him being born preterm was our biggest concern at that point,” say Louis-Charles’s parents, looking back on the experience. “We were terrified the entire time. But with the care and support of the teams at Sainte-Justine, the incubator started to open up and we began planning to bring him home.”
“There’s still a lot we don’t know about his kidneys,” they add. “But we’re definitely in the right place. Sainte-Justine is a big family we are fortunate to be a part of, and a mere ‘thank you’ will never be enough!”
Big innovations to save little Lily-Rose
Today, Lily-Rose is recovering from seven cycles of chemotherapy and the removal of a large portion of her liver. She is among the first children to benefit from fluorescence imaging technology at Sainte-Justine, acquired thanks to your donations. A green dye injected into her body allowed the surgical team to precisely identify and target the diseased tissue and confirm the success of the procedure with a scanner and monitor.
When she was just 15 months old, Lily-Rose’s parents noticed something unusual: her tummy felt abnormally hard. Their concerns were well-founded—Lily-Rose had a severely enlarged liver. She needed to be transferred from Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts to CHU Sainte-Justine right away. Once she was in the institution’s care, a biopsy was conducted that confirmed the worst: Lily-Rose had cancer.
Alongside chemotherapy, Dr. Caroline Lemoine, a pediatric surgeon specializing in hepatobiliary surgery and transplantation, suggested a procedure that had never been done before at CHU Sainte-Justine: an extreme resection that would remove as much diseased tissue as possible, leaving just 17% of Lily-Rose’s liver intact, combined with a complex vascular reconstruction called a Meso-Rex bypass.
The operation was as impressive as the medical equipment that made it possible, which was acquired through the support of big-hearted people like you.
Lily-Rose is one of the first children to benefit from fluorescence imaging technology at Sainte-Justine, and it’s all thanks to your donations. A green dye was injected into her body to show the surgical team exactly where the diseased tissue was, and subsequently confirm that it was removed.
This solution meant Lily-Rose wouldn’t need a liver transplant. And the technology will change many other children’s lives as well by reducing the complications associated with highly complex operations and accelerating the healing process.
On behalf of young patients like Lily-Rose, thank you for letting your generosity shine all the way to the operating table.
Together, we can build a brighter future and continue to grow beyond our wildest dreams. Join us in standing behind every child who dreams big.
Caring for children today lays the groundwork for a better future—what could be more important? Now is the perfect time for us to come together and advance pediatric care.