Blessing given to hospital’s new wing

[attach]5310[/attach]St. Joseph’s Health Centre celebrated 90 years of providing healthcare in West Toronto with the blessing of its new Our Lady of Mercy Patient Care Wing on Dec. 5.

The Archbishop of Toronto, Thomas Collins, was on hand to bless the 12,000 square metre four-floor patient care wing.

“It is indeed a great pleasure to be here to celebrate this liturgy of blessing for the Our Lady of Mercy wing at this tremendous centre for loving care,” he said.

The addition is named after the original Our Lady of Mercy Hospital, which merged with St. Joseph’s in the 1980s.

“This is a wonderful day for the citizens of the southwest of Toronto, who have waited eagerly for probably a little more than a decade to have Our Lady of Mercy come back into the fold of St. Joe’s and provide care to patients and their families,” said St. Joseph’s CEO Carolyn Baker.

The new wing means the hospital will have a state of the art neonatal intensive care unit, an expanded family birthing centre as well as a new pediatrics unit, which will allow St. Joseph’s to accommodate up to 4,000 births a year (up from 3,400), as well as more newborns and inpatients.

The child and adolescent mental health service unit will also be expanded.

“Child and adolescent mental health services will move out of a really cramped space in the 1962 wing,” Baker said. “They will now have a wing that allows them to move around more freely and have a better healing environment.”

The St. Joseph’s Health Care Foundation’s board chair, Marilynne Day-Linton, said the hospital’s transformation from an orphanage to a state of the art healthcare facility speaks to its commitment to high quality care.

“Having expert and compassionate care right here when you need it is what makes our community strong,” she said. “Today we celebrate our past, our proud 90-year history, and the rich traditions made possible by our founders.”

Baker said the addition is an integral part of the hospital’s commitment to innovative health care. It will replace spaces that date all the way back to 1931.

“It actually takes us into the 21st century,” she said. “What will happen here is high tech care, with a lot of heart and a lot of soul.”

The new wing is expected to open in early 2012.