It all started with the establishment of The Slaight Family Foundation in 2008 by Allan Slaight (1931–2021) and his son Gary. Their first gift to Sinai Health created the Ada Slaight and The Slaight Family Foundation Directorship in Maternity Care, in honour of Gary’s mother, Ada, and her family physician, Dr. Anne Biringer. It would go on to support Dr. Biringer’s pioneering work in perinatal care along with the training of hundreds of family doctors focused on pregnancy and newborns.
Over the next decade and a half, The Slaight Family Foundation helped build the Slaight Family Labour and Delivery Unit and provided mental health support for those trying to conceive, experiencing pregnancy loss or dealing with fertility challenges. They laid the groundwork for group prenatal care led by midwives and helped launch family medicine in Ethiopia. The training program at Addis Ababa University just celebrated its 10th anniversary, and the program’s first graduates now teach there.
With Ada’s passing in 2020, her son Gary continues The Slaight Family Foundation’s legacy of giving, which now extends across the hospital — in geriatrics, psychiatry, substance use, emergency medicine and family medicine.
This year, their philanthropy has come full circle. Their most recent gift established the Dr. Anne Biringer Mount Sinai 100 Chair in Family Medicine Pregnancy and Newborn Care — honouring the family physician who was there from the beginning and who is set to retire in June.