George and Sylvia Melville’s gift to the St. Paul’s Foundation was inspired by their granddaughter’s battle with Crohn’s disease

A new specialized digestive health centre will be built at Vancouver’s St. Paul’s Hospital after a $10-million gift inspired by a teenager’s battle with Crohn’s disease.

The donation from George and Sylvia Melville will help fund the new centre, set to open in 2029. It will help treat people with digestive and gastrointestinal illnesses such as irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn’s disease, and colitis, estimated to affect one-in-four British Columbians.

George Melville, chairman of Melville Global Investments, said the gift, announced Monday at a downtown Vancouver hotel, was made in response to their granddaughter Mikaela Wheatley’s treatment and recovery from Crohn’s at St. Paul’s.

Wheatley was diagnosed at 13 years old, and had five surgeries, battled chronic pain, and missed months of school over the next seven years. The couple hopes their donation will help patients across the province better access specialized care.

“It was difficult to watch our granddaughter struggling, and we know the new Digestive Health Centre will help many more patients who need top-tier care — both in Metro Vancouver and across the province,” he said “Small-town B.C. is where we’ve lived most of our lives and to have this specialized care available to everybody is a huge win.”

The new centre will bring six areas of digestive health care under one roof: therapeutic endoscopy, colon cancer screening, colorectal surgery, IBD care and management, liver disease, and specialized nutrition, meaning patients who had needed several visits to separate locations would be able to receive the care they need in one or two visits.

The centre, which will also be a hub for research and training, will be housed at the 12-storey Clinical Research and Support Centre currently being built next to the new hospital in Vancouver’s False Creek Flats.

“We are deeply grateful to George and Sylvia Melville for their extraordinary generosity,” said St. Paul’s Foundation president Sheila Biggers. “It will help create a new future for digestive health care in B.C., assembling the people, expertise, research and innovation needed to support patients and families for generations to come.”

Wheatley, 27, in remission and pursuing a career in speech language pathology, said she has cried happy tears after learning about her grandparents’ gift: “I know this $10 million donation will help provide others with the hope that they, too, can reclaim their health and recover.”

The Melvilles are longtime philanthropists in B.C. George Melville is best known as a former restaurateur and co-owner of the Boston Pizza chain and served as the chancellor of Kwantlen Polytechnic University from 2014 to 2020. This gift marks the couple’s second major donation to the St. Paul’s Foundation. They had previously donated $2½ million to the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Centre of B.C. in 2020.