Legion Supports The Royal Campaign for Mental Health

Legion donates $1 million to The Royal

OTTAWA, June 23, 2015 /CNW/ - The Royal Canadian Legion has donated $1 million to mental health research at The Royal Ottawa Health Care Group (The Royal). This gift will specifically be used to support the creation of a Brain Imaging Centre at The Royal featuring a state-of-the-art Positron Emission Tomography–Magnetic Resonance Imaging (PET – MRI) machine.

"This machine will allow the experts at The Royal to conduct research - including clinical trials - that will advance knowledge of brain circuitries and create new practices that will help to improve treatment for anyone suffering from mental illness," says Dominion President of The Royal Canadian Legion, Tom Eagles.

"By collaborating nationally and internationally on patient-oriented research, The Royal wants to revolutionize mental health care and set new standards of treatment for future generations including our brave men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. This support from the Legion clearly aligns with our mandate to support and care for all Veterans," adds Eagles.

"This generous support from The Royal Canadian Legion will help us to open Canada's first brain-imaging centre exclusively dedicated to mental health research – a place where researchers can investigate brain circuitry linked to depression, suicide, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other mental illnesses. The knowledge that we will gain from this research has the potential to be life-changing – and in some cases life-saving - for people suffering from mental illness," says Dr. Zul Merali, president and CEO of The Royal's Institute of Mental Health Research.

Dominion Command and several Legion provincial Commands contributed towards the amount – including Manitoba\North Western Ontario, British Columbia/Yukon Command, Ontario and Dominion Command.

The Royal is one of Canada's foremost mental health care and academic health science centres.   Its mandate is simple: to get more people living with mental illness into recovery faster. The Royal combines the delivery of specialized mental health care, advocacy, research and education to transform the lives of people with complex and treatment resistant mental illness.

The Royal's $25 million Campaign for Mental Health is supporting research, care, education and advocacy initiatives with depression research and brain imaging as cornerstone priorities.

SOURCE The Royal Canadian Legion Dominion Command

please contact Bruce Poulin at Dominion Command, The Royal Canadian Legion, at 1-613-591-3335 ext. 241 or by cell at 1-613-292-8760 or [email protected]; for further information from The Royal, please contact Karen Monaghan at 613-722-6521 ext. 6449 or by cell at: 613-868-3740 or [email protected]