Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto)

The Hospital for Sick Children
University Avenue facade
Wikimedia | © OpenStreetMap
Location in Toronto
Geography
Location	555 University Avenue Toronto, Ontario M5G 1X8
Coordinates	43°39′26″N 79°23′19″W / 43.6571°N 79.3885°W / 43.6571; -79.3885Coordinates: 43°39′26″N 79°23′19″W / 43.6571°N 79.3885°W / 43.6571; -79.3885
Organisation
Care system	Medicare
Funding	Public hospital
Type	Specialist
Affiliated university	University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine
Services
Emergency department	Pediatric Level 1 Trauma Centre (Tertiary)
Beds	453
Speciality	Children's Hospital
Helipad	TC LID: CNW8
History
Opened	1875
Links
Website	www.sickkids.ca

The Hospital for Sick Children (HSC), corporately branded as SickKids, is a major pediatric teaching hospital located on University Avenue in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is affiliated with the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Toronto.

The hospital's Peter Gilgan Centre for Research and Learning is believed to be the largest pediatric research tower in the world at 69,677.28 square metres.^[1] Founded in 1875, the hospital was inspired by the example of Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.^{[citation needed]}

The hospital is located in the Discovery District of Downtown Toronto on University Avenue, adjacent to the Toronto General Hospital and across from Mount Sinai Hospital and the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre—collectively forming a complex known as Hospital Row, each connected by tunnels and bridges. The hospital is known for its advertisement campaigns and the largest amounts of donations received for any Canadian hospital.^{[citation needed]}

History[]

Victoria Hospital for Sick Children

Nurse and orderly transport child to operating room, c. 1915

Peter Gilgan Centre for Research and Learning

During 1875, an eleven-room house was rented for $320 a year by a Toronto women's bible study group led by Elizabeth McMaster.^[2] Opened on March 1,^[3] they set up six iron cots and "declared open a hospital 'for the admission and treatment of all sick children.'" Their first patient, a scalding victim named Maggie, came in on April 3. Forty-four patients were admitted to the hospital in its first year of operation and sixty-seven others were treated in outpatient clinics.^[4]

In 1876 the hospital moved to larger facilities. In 1891 the hospital moved from rented premises to a building constructed for it at College and Elizabeth streets where it would remain for sixty years. This old building, known as the Victoria Hospital for Sick Children, is now the Toronto area headquarters of Canadian Blood Services. In 1951 the hospital moved to its present University Avenue location, on the grounds where Canadian-born movie star Mary Pickford's childhood home once stood.^[4]

In 1972,^[5] the hospital was equipped with a rooftop helipad (CNW8).^[6] Today, it is one of two downtown Toronto hospitals with a helipad (the other being St. Michael's Hospital) and one of three in Toronto (the third being at Sunnybrook Hospital).

SickKids Hospital underwent a major expansion in 1993 with the construction of a glass-roofed atrium on the east side of the main building. In late 2008, the hospital underwent a major renovation in the emergency wing.

Funding[]

Atrium designed by Eberhard Zeidler

Medical treatments at the hospital are covered by publicly funded health insurance, as is the case in most other Canadian hospitals. Philanthropy is a critical source of funding for SickKids Hospital that is separate and distinct from government and granting agencies. In 2006/07, financial support from SickKids Foundation to the hospital totalled $72.1 million. The support went towards infrastructure and support for physicians, researchers and scientists who compete for national and international research grants. Next to government, SickKids Foundation is the largest funding agency in child health research, education and care in Canada. The Foundation maintains a fund, called the Herbie Fund, for patients not covered by Canadian health insurance. The fund was established in 1979 to provide for the treatment of Herbie Quiñones, a seven-month-old patient from Brooklyn, New York.

Contributions to medicine[]

The hospital was an early leader in the fields of food safety and nutrition. In 1908 a pasteurization facility for milk was established at the hospital, the first in Toronto, and 30 years before milk pasteurization became mandatory.^[7] Researchers at the hospital invented the infant cereal, Pablum. The research that led to the discovery of insulin took place nearby at the University of Toronto and was soon applied at the hospital. Doctor Frederick Banting, one of the researchers, had served his internship at SickKids Hospital and went on to become an attending physician there. In 1963 William Thornton Mustard developed the Mustard surgical procedure used to help correct heart problems in blue baby syndrome.^[7] In 1989, a team of researchers at the hospital discovered the gene responsible for cystic fibrosis.^[8]

Controversy[]

The hospital housed the Motherisk Drug Testing Laboratory.^[9] At the request of various child protection agencies 16,000 hair samples were tested from 2005 to 2015. Former Ontario Appeal Court judge Susan Lang reviewed Motherisk Drug Testing Laboratory and determined that they were not qualified to do forensic testing. Lang also stated "That SickKids failed to exercise meaningful oversight over MDTL's work must be considered in the context of the hospital's experience with Dr. Charles Smith".^[10] The 2008 Goudge Report found Dr. Charles Smith, whose forensic testimony led to wrongful convictions in the deaths of children, was also not qualified to do forensic testing.^[11]

Future[]

The hospital is in the initial stages of expansion. In 2017 it established the "SickKids VS Limits" fundraising campaign that will continue until 2022 to raise $1.3 billion for the expansion project.^[12][13] The funds will be used to build a patient care centre on University Avenue, a support centre on Elizabeth Street, to renovate the atrium, and to fund pediatric health research.^[13]

To provide the required area for the buildings, demolition of existing structures was required. This included removal of a skyway spanning Elizabeth Street, demolition of the Elizabeth McMaster Building at the northeast corner of Elizabeth Street and Elm Street, and demolition of the laboratory and administrative building.^[14]:26–31​

Construction of the 22-storey Patient Support Centre administrative building will occur on the site of the Elizabeth McMaster Building, and will be completed in 2022. The Peter Gilgan Family Patient Care Tower is expected to open in 2029, and the atrium renovation to be completed by 2031.^[14]

See also[]

• Anna Goldenberg

References[]

• Braithwaite, Max (1974). Sick Kids: the story of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. ISBN 0-7710-1636-0.
• Wright, David (2016). SickKids: The History of the Hospital for Sick Children. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1442647237.

Footnotes[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hospital for Sick Children.

• The Hospital for Sick Children website
• SickKids Foundation website