Hospitals unveil growth plans in 2009.
Among the health-related stories in North York in 2009: Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre announced the completion of an innovative solar photovoltaic installation during a ceremony at the Bayview Campus in Toronto Sept. 9, 2009. The wall was named in honour of the late Harry Taylor, who died November 2008 in a car accident.
Photo/SUMBITTED
Hospital officials in North York used 2009 to lay out industrious plans to grow bigger and better. On Nov. 2, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre launched its Campaign for Sunnybrook.The most ambitious fundraising drive in the hospital's history, Sunnybrook is looking to raise $470 million for new facilities, research, technology and the Sunnybrook Fund to support the most promising developments at the hospital.Across town, Humber River Regional Hospital (HRRH) unveiled its plans to build Ontario's first digital hospital on the north side of Hwy. 401, west of Keele Street. Construction will begin in 2011 and the new hospital is expected to open its doors in 2014.Meanwhile, the latest round of development surrounding North York General Hospital's Branson division on Finch Avenue, west of Bathurst Street, was approved. The Seventh Day Adventist Church's Advent Health Care Corp., which owns the site at 555 Finch Ave. W., is developing the 8.2-hectare (20.2-acre) site into a seniors' campus over about 20 years.In other health news, in January, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind launched Celebrating Braille: A Canadian Approach, the first Canadian braille textbook. In February, HRRH said it would boost the number of bariatric surgeries, also known as gastric bypasses, it performs on overweight patients after being named one of four centres of excellence for the procedure by the province.A provincial Ministry of Health report released in March showed patients wait longer for treatment in North York emergency rooms than in ERs of other hospitals in the Greater Toronto Area. North York hospitals have among the worst wait times in the GTA, the statistics showed.On a related note, the Ontario Health Quality Council praised North York General for reducing patient wait times in key areas. The council, which assesses how well the health system is achieving the province's wait time strategy, gave NYGH glowing marks for its cancer care strategy, its improvement of patient flow in the emergency department, and its success in moving elderly and chronically ill patients from hospital beds to long-term care.In April, Ontario's chief medical officer of health, Dr. David Williams, released a report on the 2008 deadly outbreak of listeria at North York's Maple Leaf Foods. He called for several measures to be implemented before the next inevitable food-borne outbreak occurs. Five months later, independent federal investigator Sheila Weatherill, who also looked into the outbreak, released her report with 57 recommendations to prevent a similar situation in the future. At the end of April, Toronto began seeing its first cases of H1N1 or swine flu, an illness that would continue to make headlines over the coming months. For example, overwhelming demand for flu shots closed down a public health clinic at the North York Civic Centre less than an hour after it opened on Oct. 29. Dozens of people snaked around the lower level of the civic centre and out the door as they waited for vaccinations. During the Toronto city workers labour disruption in the summer, dozens of striking paramedics gathered for a press conference on Lodestar Road behind the Toronto EMS headquarters at 4330 Dufferin St., south of Finch Avenue, to announce they would be wearing black T-shirts while responding to emergency calls to indicate their support for striking inside and outside workers.In September, Sunnybrook unveiled a state-of-the-art solar wall, named in honour of long-time director of facility services Harry Taylor, who was killed in a car accident Nov. 6, 2008.The unveiling marked a $28-million energy-saving partnership with multi-national company Honeywell.