Keeping Canada Alive hears 'what she's giving me is life itself'

A woman donates a kidney to her 81-year-old father and a baby first hears her mother's voice when her cochlear implants are turned on in Part 5 of Keeping Canada Alive, a day in the life of our health care system.

Emmy-award winning Canadian actor Kiefer Sutherland narrates the six-part series. The show airs Sunday at 9 p.m. in all time zones (9:30 p.m. NT) on CBC-TV.

About 60 camera crews shot the intimate stories of patients and health-care providers at hospitals, clinics and homes.

Stories in the fifth episode include:

• In the midst of a spring snowstorm, a new baby is delivered by C-section at one of Edmonton's busiest maternity wards. "That feeling when you deliver the baby and you meet this brand new little person and introduce them to their family is like nothing else," says obstetrician Dr. McCubbin.
• A daughter and her father both head into kidney transplant surgery as the wife waits anxiously. "I believe in my heart that if his quality of life is better he'll live longer. I know he's in his 80s and people think it's just crazy but I'm not ready to say goodbye," the daughter says of her donation. She's one of about four Canadians who donated a kidney that day.
• In Vancouver, two heroin addicts visit a clinic to receive daily injections of prescription heroin. Carol, 62, said she started using the drug to treat pain after a car accident in the 1980s. She appreciates not having to worry about risk of overdosing or getting bad quality drugs.
• In Toronto, watch how a baby responds when her cochlear implants are activated for the first time. "The child now realizes that sound is a way their mom and their dad and their brothers and sisters give them love," says Dr. Papsin.
• A women with colon cancer that's metastasized to her brain receives radiation treatment delivered with pinpoint accuracy by a high-tech robot in Hamilton. Shirley calls herself one of the elite one per cent whose cancer spread from the "bottom of the house to the top of the house."
• A passionate family doctor in Toronto delivers care to homebound patients. "These are the moments that are very special as a doctor. Usually I close the door and don't talk about it," says Dr. Pham.

For more, the extensive website for the series includes many more stories from a customizable, 24-hour stream of raw footage.