January 26th 2005, as every second month, we had the first supper this year. This is our jubilee year, since it was 40 years ago when we started to bestow every year on our Annual Scholarship Ball the scholarships to post secondary students of Slovak descent, or our members’ relatives. For this reason we invited to our January supper a distinguished guest speaker Dr. Emil Skamene who spoke about the new Montreal Mega-hospital.

Supper CSPBA

We had the supper this time in one of the best Chinese restaurants “Hot & Spicy”. During the cocktail, which started shortly after 6.00 PM, our 44 guests had slowly arrived and were introduced to Dr. Emil Skamene, the Montreal General Hospital research director, the McGill University Health director and the Vice President for research of the Montreal Mega-Hospital. The supper started around 8.30 PM and all our guests were served to their taste until they could not eat any more. Actually, after I introduced Dr. Skamene, his first sentence was: “I want to thank Dr. Brody for inviting me for the best Chinese supper I have ever eaten”.

In his short lecture, Dr. Skamene referred to various problems currently occurring in many Montreal hospitals (such as Royal Victoria, Montreal General, Montreal Children’s Hospital, Montreal Neurological Institute). These conditions are totally unacceptable not only to the patients, but also to the doctors, nurses and researchers. However, in spite of all this, as Dr. Skamene in his lecture (enriched by excellent slides) mentioned, cases which the whole medical world can envy us (saving a pregnant women with Leukemia and her child, progress in treatment of Diabetes, works in Paleontology, etc.). These Montreal doctors and researchers work in unbelievably stressful conditions.

The Montreal Mega-Hospital, built in close proximity to the Metro station (Vendom), will be connected by an underground tunnel with the hospital area. This will prevent many unfortunate accidents, which occur when the patients are forced to walk through huge snow piles and icy sidewalks before entering the hospitals. From the slides it was clear that the conditions in the new hospital are an enormous improvement of the current hygiene and ability to treat the patients successfully.

In conclusion, this first 2005 supper started our jubilee year successfully. The Board of our Association will therefore continue in this tradition. Even though, it will be very difficult to find such a witty and eloquent speaker, as is Dr. Emil Skamene, we believe that we find somebody, whose lecture will be as enjoyable and educational as this, so our guests will go home as content and happy as this Wednesday.

Dr. Brody, President of CSPBA