St. Michael's Hospital (Toronto)

St. Michael's Hospital is a teaching hospital and medical centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was established by the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1892, with the founding goal of taking care of the sick and poor of Toronto's inner city.[1] The hospital provides tertiary and quaternary services in cardiovascular surgery, neurosurgery, inner city health and therapeutic endoscopy. It is one of two Level 1 adult trauma centres in Greater Toronto, along with the larger Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. As trauma centres, both St. Michael's and Sunnybrook are equipped with helipads. It is one of the teaching hospitals of the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine.

St. Michael's Hospital
Unity Health Toronto
St. Michael's, Queen Street entrance
Location in Toronto
Geography
Location30 Bond Street
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5B 1W8
Coordinates43.6532°N 79.3775°W / 43.6532; -79.3775
Organisation
Care systemMedicare
TypeTeaching
Affiliated universityUniversity of Toronto Faculty of Medicine
Services
Emergency departmentLevel I Trauma Centre
Beds463
HelipadTC LID: CTM4
History
Opened1892
Links
Websitewww.stmichaelshospital.com

Overview

The hospital is located near the intersection of Queen Street and Yonge Street in Downtown Toronto's Garden District. The hospital serves a diverse population that includes the affluent condominium complexes in Harbourfront, the underprivileged of the inner city of Regent Park, and the gay and lesbian community in Church and Wellesley. The hospital has 463 inpatient beds and extensive outpatient clinics.[2]

The current Physician-in-Chief is Dr. Sharon Straus,[3] the Surgeon-in-Chief is Dr. Ori Rotstein[4] and the President and CEO is Dr. Tim Rutledge.[5] The hospital also has a large team of volunteers that contribute their skills and caring to help achieve the hospital's commitment to healing. The hospital absorbed the Wellesley endoscopy group after Wellesley Hospital was closed.

St. Michael's was the subject of a groundbreaking experiment partnering media and medicine. Award-winning documentary filmmaker Katerina Cizek teamed up with frontline health care workers in the National Film Board of Canada's Filmmaker-in-Residence[6] project. The website received the 2008 Webby Award for best online documentary series.[7]

In October 2008, St. Michael's was named one of Greater Toronto's Top Employers by Mediacorp Canada Inc., which was announced by the Toronto Star newspaper.[8] The hospital was also named one of the Best Employers for New Canadians for six consecutive years from 2008 to 2013.[9][10]

History

St. Michael's Hospital - Art Deco Bond Street entrance

St. Michael's Hospital was founded in 1892 by the Sisters of St. Joseph, who operated the Notre Dame des Anges, a boarding house for working women. Originally an old Baptist church, the hospital on Bond Street was created in response to care for the poor population in the south end of Toronto.[11]

The hospital opened with a bed capacity of 26 and a staff of six doctors and four graduate nurses. Within a year, it was expanded to include two large wards and an emergency department.

As early as 1894, St. Michael's Hospital started receiving medical students. It negotiated a formal agreement with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto in 1920 that continues to this day.

By 1912, bed capacity had reached 300, and a five-room operating suite was added. Ongoing physical expansion, most prominent in the 1960s, increased the original 26-bed facility to a high of 900 beds.

Between 1892 and 1974, St. Michael's school of nursing graduated 81 classes, totalling 5,177 graduates. The school was closed in 1974 when nursing education was moved into the province's community college system. Thereafter, the hospital opened a school for medical record librarians, the first in Canada, and also participated in the preparation of dietitians and X-ray and laboratory technologists.

In March 2010, the hospital re-branded itself simply as St. Michael's to reflect its growing movement into medical research. At the same time a new motto: "Inspired Care. Inspiring Science." was also revealed.[12]

On 1 August 2017, St. Michael's Hospital merged with St. Joseph's Health Centre and Providence Healthcare to form a new hospital network.[13]

Construction

St. Michael's is undergoing major renovations. The majority of the construction is taking place at the corner of Queen and Victoria Street where they are building the 17-storey Peter Gilgan Patient Care Tower. Construction began in April 2015 and is expected to be completed in 2018.[14] The 250,000-square-foot addition will boast a new main entrance and an Emergency department nearly doubled in size. It is expected to cost around $301M.[15]

Services

The hospital is also home to the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, with a state-of-the-art building, opened on October 18, 2011.[18][19] The Knowledge Institute aims to bring together the areas of research and education to bring advances to patient care sooner. It is also the home of the Toronto Platelet Immunobiology Group, a group of scientists and physicians that perform research in platelet and bleeding disorders.

St. Michael's is one of a few GTA hospitals with helicopter landing facilities and one of two in downtown Toronto (the other is at the Hospital for Sick Children). The helipad (TC LID: CTM4)[20] is located on the roof of the main hospital wing in the north end at Shuter Street and Victoria Street.

References

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