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Thanks to a generous donation from the Hellenic Friends of the Royal Victoria Hospital Auxiliary, the MUHC Birthing Centre now has three new epidural pumps to provide a constant level of pain relief to women in labour.

"Previously, our labouring mothers had to wait in agony until a pump was free. These three new pumps mean that we now have a total of ten pumps — one per delivery room," says Francine Boucher, nurse manager of the MUHC Obstetrics Perinatal Unit, including the MUHC Birthing Centre and High Risk Antenatal Unit.

"This alleviates the stress on patients. They are less anxious, calmer and more comfortable. This translates into easier deliveries, allowing the mothers to focus on the positive experience of their child's birth instead of on the pain," she says.

The pumps will also be used to deliver post-partum pain relief to women who have just undergone C-sections, Boucher noted.

The Hellenic Friends have raised over $200,000 for the MUHC over the past ten years. "This is an amazing group of women from the Greek community who have shown what they can achieve through bake sales, selling flowers in their churches, and holding an annual tea party. We are very grateful for their diligence and generosity to our hospital," says Boucher.

"We realized that there are a lot of things the hospital needs to provide the best care to its patients and we wanted to contribute to this effort," explains Tina Karaartinyan, president of the Hellenic Friends.

The Friends raised over $13,000 to help purchase the new epidural units.

About the ³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ Health Centre (MUHC)

The ³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ Health Centre (MUHC) is a comprehensive academic health institution with an international reputation for excellence in clinical programs, research and teaching. The MUHC is a merger of five teaching hospitals affiliated with the Faculty of Medicine at ³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ — the Montreal Children's, Montreal General, Royal Victoria, and Montreal Neurological Hospitals, as well as the Montreal Chest Institute. Building on the tradition of medical leadership of the founding hospitals, the goal of the MUHC is to provide patient care based on the most advanced knowledge in the health care field, and to contribute to the development of new knowledge.