By Allison Wilton
A $51-million renovation project is about to bring Saint-Vincent Hospital into the 21st century.
The 70-year-old Cambridge Street hospital was last remodeled in 1954. This has plagued residents with cramped living space, limited privacy and poor ventilation for years.
“It gets really frustrating,” says Todd Adams, 39, a quadriplegic who has been a patient at Saint-Vincent Hospital for five years. “My so-called semi-private room has a thin curtain dividing me from my roommate and my wheelchair can barely get through the door. I have to go in forward and back out. It’s a joke.”
Adams is further prevented from using his own washroom because his wheelchair simply can’t fit.
The expansion and renovation project will add 8,100 square metres to the existing building, and the old wing will undergo a facelift to bring it up to modern day standards. This means the living space for each resident will virtually be doubled.
The new facility will be equipped with wheelchair-accessible washrooms, an atrium for socializing, oxygen pipes routed through the walls to replace old clumsy equipment and central air conditioning.
Heat waves in the summer months saw room temperatures at Saint-Vincent soar to 45 C.
“There is simply no air conditioning in the building, and it becomes unbearable,” says Michel Bilodeau, CEO of the Sisters of Charity of Ottawa (SCO) Health Service, which runs the hospital. “This can be extremely problematic, not only for patients who are older and spend a lot of time in their beds, but for staff as well.”
More than 60 per cent of the residents are over the age of 65, many with respiratory problems.
Bilodeau says the new renovations are needed and will dramatically improve the quality of life of the patients and staff at the hospital.
Originally, plans to remodel the aging hospital began in 1984 but were called off in 1987 when the provincial government froze all capital projects.
The provincial government has contributed 70 per cent of the $51 million cost of the current project, leaving Saint-Vincent responsible for the remaining $15 million. Bilodeau hopes to raise half of that through a crucial fund-raising campaign.
He says that although gaining financial support from local Ottawa residents is difficult, due to what he calls a lack of “glamour” Saint-Vincent Hospital patients have when compared to younger patients at CHEO, he is hopeful the campaign will be a success.
The ‘Adding Life to Years’ campaign kicked off Oct. 15 and has already raised $4 million through corporate donations.
If the $7.5 million goal is not met, Bilodeau says, the hospital will have to either borrow money or reduce some services to pay for the construction which has already begun.
The project is expected to be finished by December 2005.
“We want people to realize that one day it could be them or their parents with a chronic disease; and Saint-Vincent Hospital is the only place in the Ottawa area to go,” he says. “People should realize that the way we treat the most vulnerable people in society is a reflection of the type of society we live in.”
Saint-Vincent specializes in caring for those suffering from permanent conditions such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Alzeimer’s disease and strokes.