North York General Hospital and Toronto East General Hospital
Announce Integrated Thoracic Surgery

Toronto, March 31, 2008 — North York General Hospital and Toronto East General Hospital are pleased to announce the voluntary development of an integrated thoracic (lung and esophagus) surgery program, meeting Cancer Care Ontario's quality standard for thoracic cancer surgery.

To ensure patients continue to receive the highest standards of care, North York General Hospital patients will now be referred to TEGH for thoracic surgery. "This collaboration is an excellent example of how hospitals can work together to enhance patient care and optimize health care resources," says Bonnie Adamson, President & CEO, North York General Hospital. "This partnership is another example of how North York General Hospital looks for innovative ways to provide our patients with the care they need at the right place and in the most timely way."

As a result of the collaboration, a complement of three thoracic surgeons will now be operating within the multidisciplinary model of care at TEGH, providing continuous on-call coverage. It will also result in at least a 35% increase in the volume of thoracic surgery procedures performed at TEGH, meeting all requirements necessary to make TEGH a Level 1 hospital - a designation for hospitals providing the highest level of thoracic surgical care in Ontario.

"We are excited to work closely with North York General Hospital to implement this integrated program, " says Rob Devitt, President & CEO, Toronto East General Hospital. "The initiative nicely builds on the success of Toronto East General Hospital's existing regional thoracic surgery partnership with Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre."

"Cancer Care Ontario fully supports this integrated thoracic surgery program," said Dr. Terry Sullivan, President, Cancer Care Ontario. "The partnership between these three hospitals will ensure that cancer patients in Toronto and GTA requiring complex thoracic cancer surgeries will receive the safest and highest standard of care."

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About North York General Hospital:
North York General Hospital, affiliated with the University of Toronto, is one of Canada's leading community teaching hospitals. We offer our culturally diverse community a wide range of acute care, ambulatory and long-term care services across three sites. The hospital embraces health by providing innovative and compassionate care for the whole person throughout all stages of life.

About TEGH:
Toronto East General Hospital (TEGH) is a large urban community teaching hospital serving a diverse, multi-cultural population of 400,000. TEGH is affiliated with the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine and other educational institutions. In January 2004, TEGH celebrated 75 years of service to the South East Toronto community. As a community teaching hospital, TEGH has 500 beds comprised of a wide range of services including; Ambulatory (outpatient) and Community Services, Maternal/Newborn/Child, Mental Health, Complex Continuing Care and Short-Term Rehab and Surgery. TEGH is committed to the highest standards of patient care.

TEGH currently performs approximately 100 thoracic surgeries, the vast majority of those cases are cancer related. With the additional surgeon on staff, TEGH will be able to increase its procedures by at least 35. Traditionally patients waiting for treatment waited an average of 15 weeks. TEGH's Time to Treat program introduced in 2005, to reduce the time patients with suspected lung cancer waited for treatment, has been very successful at reducing the wait time by 11 weeks.