"I'm suing you from my hospital bed!"

In hospital after a car crash and need a lawyer? Look up
Law firms are giving money for hospotal naming rights stirring debate over who is donating and where
Lisa Priest
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Patients being treated for automobile accidents at Canada’s largest trauma hospital need look no further if they want to sue: A law firm’s name is displayed prominently in a visitors lounge.
The same goes for those recuperating from spinal-cord injuries at a rehab hospital: One of its dining rooms is sponsored by two personal-injury law firms.
Naming hospital wings, waiting rooms and even patient rooms is a well-established practice, but who is donating – and where – has caused a stir.
“It feels a little bit like the ambulance-chasing lawyer,” Marvin Ryder, professor of marketing at the DeGroote School of Business in Hamilton, said of the donor signs. “… People who might be thinking of a lawyer now have the name of one in a very credible way. We do know that some philanthropy is done in the name of promotion, but you want it to be appropriate.”
The issue of creeping commercialism in public buildings has so troubled British Columbia that the province has adopted a naming-privileges policy, giving it veto power over names placed on many government-funded buildings, including universities and hospitals.
Elsewhere in Canada, the naming of publicly funded buildings rests largely with those running them. Hospital foundations are only now starting to form policies on naming rights – hot-ticket items that can run in the millions.
Gluckstein & Associates LLP Lawyers Visitors Lounge at the ICU unit of Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto (Fernando Morales/The Globe and Mail)
Last September, Sunnybrook Foundation created its first such policy, which stipulates that only the benefactor company’s proper name be provided. As a result, it stripped two words – “personal injury” – from the Gluckstein & Associates LLP sign in its visitors lounge at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, according to Pamela Ross, the foundation’s vice-president of communications. The word “lawyer” would also have been removed, Ms. Ross said, if there wasn’t an interior design firm of the same name.
“We needed a proper naming policy; it has nothing to do with any particular donor,” Ms. Ross said. “… It’s critically important that we get it right.”
There are signs that Tim Cameron, president and chief executive officer of the Saint John Regional Hospital Foundation in New Brunswick, says he would never have allowed in the first place. That foundation does not permit corporate logos or descriptions, nor does it allow in any company that has an interest in certain patients.
“If a corporation or business came knocking with a $1-million offer, we would entertain a naming opportunity,” Mr. Cameron wrote in an e-mail. “But not if they had a business interest in a particular clinical area.”
Mr. Cameron said the hospital is a place of health and healing, “not a canvas for promotion of any particular business interests.” The Rogers Centre, he said, “might be good for baseball but perhaps not so good for a hospital.” He added: “For the same reason a drug company would be prohibited by protocols from having a surgical suite named after them, we would not name an ER waiting room after personal injury lawyers.”
But lawyer Bernard Gluckstein said the firm’s donation to Sunnybrook was intended to thank staff for the wonderful care they have provided to his clients, many of whom have brain or spinal cord injuries.
“I think we started a trend,” Mr. Gluckstein said. “It’s great we’re able to stimulate a sector of the economy to make donations that way.”
The donation was not made to encourage business, he said, nor does he think it would have that effect. “I don’t think it does much, but it does bring to the attention of the people who have worked with your clients, you appreciate the work they’ve done for you.”
He made a similar donation to St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, where a waiting room in the intensive care unit on the trauma neurosurgery floor was named after his firm in 2007. At the time, the hospital did not have a donor recognition policy, according to Alayne Metrick, president of St. Michael’s Foundation.
What does a naming opportunity cost?
At the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, two personal injury law firms, Oatley Vigmond and McLeish Orlando, donated $1-million in total. For that, their names will appear in three patient dining rooms.
“Increasingly, government can’t afford to cover all the expenses,” said Jennifer Ferguson, Toronto Rehab’s vice-president of marketing and communications. “We are turning to donors to help us make that difference so we can deliver the care that people depend on us for, and carry out the research we need for better ways of treating patients.”

Lisa Priest
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Patients being treated for automobile accidents at Canada’s largest trauma hospital need look no further if they want to sue: A law firm’s name is displayed prominently in a visitors lounge.
The same goes for those recuperating from spinal-cord injuries at a rehab hospital: One of its dining rooms is sponsored by two personal-injury law firms.
Naming hospital wings, waiting rooms and even patient rooms is a well-established practice, but who is donating – and where – has caused a stir.
“It feels a little bit like the ambulance-chasing lawyer,” Marvin Ryder, professor of marketing at the DeGroote School of Business in Hamilton, said of the donor signs. “… People who might be thinking of a lawyer now have the name of one in a very credible way. We do know that some philanthropy is done in the name of promotion, but you want it to be appropriate.”
The issue of creeping commercialism in public buildings has so troubled British Columbia that the province has adopted a naming-privileges policy, giving it veto power over names placed on many government-funded buildings, including universities and hospitals.
Elsewhere in Canada, the naming of publicly funded buildings rests largely with those running them. Hospital foundations are only now starting to form policies on naming rights – hot-ticket items that can run in the millions.

Last September, Sunnybrook Foundation created its first such policy, which stipulates that only the benefactor company’s proper name be provided. As a result, it stripped two words – “personal injury” – from the Gluckstein & Associates LLP sign in its visitors lounge at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, according to Pamela Ross, the foundation’s vice-president of communications. The word “lawyer” would also have been removed, Ms. Ross said, if there wasn’t an interior design firm of the same name.
“We needed a proper naming policy; it has nothing to do with any particular donor,” Ms. Ross said. “… It’s critically important that we get it right.”
There are signs that Tim Cameron, president and chief executive officer of the Saint John Regional Hospital Foundation in New Brunswick, says he would never have allowed in the first place. That foundation does not permit corporate logos or descriptions, nor does it allow in any company that has an interest in certain patients.
“If a corporation or business came knocking with a $1-million offer, we would entertain a naming opportunity,” Mr. Cameron wrote in an e-mail. “But not if they had a business interest in a particular clinical area.”
Mr. Cameron said the hospital is a place of health and healing, “not a canvas for promotion of any particular business interests.” The Rogers Centre, he said, “might be good for baseball but perhaps not so good for a hospital.” He added: “For the same reason a drug company would be prohibited by protocols from having a surgical suite named after them, we would not name an ER waiting room after personal injury lawyers.”
But lawyer Bernard Gluckstein said the firm’s donation to Sunnybrook was intended to thank staff for the wonderful care they have provided to his clients, many of whom have brain or spinal cord injuries.
“I think we started a trend,” Mr. Gluckstein said. “It’s great we’re able to stimulate a sector of the economy to make donations that way.”
The donation was not made to encourage business, he said, nor does he think it would have that effect. “I don’t think it does much, but it does bring to the attention of the people who have worked with your clients, you appreciate the work they’ve done for you.”
He made a similar donation to St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, where a waiting room in the intensive care unit on the trauma neurosurgery floor was named after his firm in 2007. At the time, the hospital did not have a donor recognition policy, according to Alayne Metrick, president of St. Michael’s Foundation.
What does a naming opportunity cost?
At the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, two personal injury law firms, Oatley Vigmond and McLeish Orlando, donated $1-million in total. For that, their names will appear in three patient dining rooms.
“Increasingly, government can’t afford to cover all the expenses,” said Jennifer Ferguson, Toronto Rehab’s vice-president of marketing and communications. “We are turning to donors to help us make that difference so we can deliver the care that people depend on us for, and carry out the research we need for better ways of treating patients.”
1 Comments:
Just want to clarify that the cut line under the photo in this posted version of the G&M story is incorrect. The sign in the photo is located in a patient ward several floors above our critical care unit. The G&M is in the process of making a correction.
Pamela Ross
Sunnybrook Foundation
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