SV was living in Newmarket when she had an aneurysm, followed by multiple health issues that resulted in surgery due to a stroke. In 2002, her world changed again when her husband died, and she became a single mother to four children.  

“This is when my depression started, but I didn’t really understand what was happening at the time,” she says through a Tamil translator. “I speak Tamil and very little English, so trying to use the right words to describe my pain was very hard. Sometimes, what I am saying in Tamil has a different meaning in English.” 

SV says she felt like she didn’t know what she was doing. She was on medication with side effects she knew nothing about and had no one to talk to. SV went to Emergency at least once every week with chest pain and shortness of breath. She didn’t realize she was having frequent panic attacks until she was finally connected to SHN’s mental health program and got the support she needed from Maria Henrietta, a Tamil-speaking mental health therapist who likely saved her life.  

Thanks to The Slaight Family Foundation’s $1 million donation, SHN has created The Slaight Family Foundation Cultural Psychiatry Clinic inside a new Community Mental Health Centre. This clinic is designed to ensure easy access to care in one location that meets the needs of all patients.  

The new Centre opened at Eglinton Ave and Warden Ave in June 2024. It was made possible entirely thanks to donors, who collectively donated $6 million to enable this priority project within the Love, Scarborough campaign. 

Chief of Psychiatry Dr. Ilan Fischler (left) has been treating people with mental illness for more than 15 years and sees people every day who feel alone and overwhelmed coping with mental illness. “Many of our patients need help but are unsure where to go. Some may be nervous or reluctant to see a doctor, while others may have tried to get help before and keep finding a ‘wrong door’ due to an inaccurate referral,” he says. “Imagine all of this and also experiencing a language barrier.”  

Dr. Fischler says the 15,000-square-foot space is transforming mental healthcare for Scarborough and beyond. “This centre is more than a beautiful, new space—it has inspired us to approach care differently. We call it a ‘no wrong door’ model of treatment, so patients just need one referral form to access dozens of services so they can get the support they need—in the language they are most comfortable with—in a timely manner.” 

With support from donors, patients like SV will be able to go to the new centre and access mental healthcare in six different languages—Mandarin, Cantonese, Farsi, Tamil, Arabic, and Dari—through the clinic.  

SV’s mental health therapist Maria is an outspoken advocate for the new clinic. “We see so many patients like SV and know how much our community needs access to a clinic like this,” she says. “We are beyond excited to open our doors to help more people like SV get the care they need.”