May 9th, 2025 | Alex Harris | Seaside FM News
The IWK foundation received a 2 million dollar gift from the J and W Murphy foundation to create a Breast Health Research Unit at the IWK. The unit will focus on data collection in order to inform breast cancer care in the province.
The information collected by the unit will include the experience of patients with breast cancer including how the patient reports on quality of life, understanding the reasons behind a patient’s treatment choices, and the overall experience of breast cancer patients in the healthcare system.
Currently, IWK Health collects data on women with breast cancer within Nova Scotia’s central zone. This funding will expand the unit to collect data from all breast cancer patients in Nova Scotia, capturing both clinical outcomes such as survival rates and patient-reported outcomes.
This will be one of the first datasets of its kind in Atlantic Canada.
The J & W Murphy foundation is a private charity operating out of Halifax that supports initiatives in areas such as healthcare, and education. The charity focuses primarily, but not exclusively, on Nova Scotia.
“The J & W Murphy Foundation is proud to support the IWK’s new Breast Health Research Unit, a groundbreaking initiative that will improve care for women in Nova Scotia facing breast cancer—both today and for generations to come,” said Lisa Murphy, of the J & W Murphy Foundation. “Our family is deeply committed to advancing women’s health, and we are honoured to help drive meaningful, lasting improvements in breast cancer research and care across the province.”
The Canadian Cancer Society estimates that one in eight Canadian women will develop breast cancer during their lifetime. This research aims to help optimize care for breast cancer patients in Nova Scotia.
