Hospital for Sick Children
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Hospital for Sick Children
The Hospital for Sick Children from University Avenue.
Location
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Organization
Care system
Public Medicare (Canada) (OHIP)
Hospital type
Teaching, Specialist, paediatric research facility
Affiliated university
University of Toronto
Emergency department
Yes - regional paediatric trauma centre
Beds
265
Founded
1875
Website
home page
Lists
Hospitals in Canada
The Hospital for Sick Children, also known as SickKids, is a children's hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is a teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Toronto, and it is home to the world's second largest hospital-based paediatric research facility (world's largest being Children's Hospital Boston). It was founded in 1875, inspired by the example of Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, England. The hospital is located on University Avenue in the city's Discovery District, a block south of Queen's Park near Queen's Park and St. Patrick subway stations.
Contents[hide]
1 Funding
2 History
2.1 Infant deaths
3 Contributions to medicine
4 Recent events
5 References
5.1 Footnotes
6 External links
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[edit] Funding
Atrium of the Hospital for Sick Children.Designed by Eberhard Zeidler.
Medical treatments at SickKids are covered by publicly funded health insurance, as is the case in all Canadian hospitals. Philanthropy is a critical source of funding for SickKids 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 a seven month old patient from Brooklyn, New York named Herbie Quiñones.
[edit] History
Victoria Hospital for Sick Children
During the spring of 1875 a group of Toronto women led by Elizabeth McMaster rented an 11-room house for $320 a year. 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.[1]
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 star Mary Pickford's childhood home once stood.[1] The hospital underwent its last major expansion in 1993 with the construction of a glass-roofed atrium on the east side of the main building.
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. 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 and went on to become an attending physician there. In 1989, a team of researchers at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto discovered the gene responsible for cystic fibrosis. In 1991, Dr Arlette Lefebvre founded Ability Online, an online community for ill and disabled children and their families.
[edit] Recent events
In 2004, doctors at SickKids helped save the life of 10-year-old Djamshid Popal from Afghanistan by treating his heart problem, after the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario diagnosed his illness and referred this patient.[3]
In 2004, SickKids implemented a document management software strategy to improve the storage, security and retrieval of their Electronic Patient Charts. The initiative is continuously updated and has helped streamline processes at the point of care by providing physicians with quick computer access to complete Electronic Patient Charts. The following link is shared with the permission of Canadian Healthcare Technology. [4]
In 2010, researchers led by Dr. Andrew Redington, a cardiologist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada have found that intermittently inflating the cuff on the arm of someone having a heart attack helps set off a response that lessens the heart damage caused by the attack[5].
[edit] 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.
[edit] Footnotes
^ a b "SickKids History". Hospital for Sick Children. 2005-12-15. http://www.sickkids.ca/AboutHSC/section.asp?s=History+and+Milestones&sID=11889&ss=SickKids+History&ssID=211. Retrieved 2006-09-14.
^ Ontario. Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Certain Deaths at the Hospital for Sick Children and Related Matters . Toronto: Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General, 1984. (Commissioner: Samuel G. M. Grange). ISBN 0774399686 (pbk.)
^ "Healthy Djamshid Popal heads home to Afghanistan". CTV. 2004-11-27. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1101509587169_96918787/?hub=TopStories. Retrieved 2006-09-14.
^ http://www.microdea.com/health-care/case-studies.aspx?id=870
^ "Simple device helps cut heart attack severity". CTV.ca. 2010-02-26. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20100226/hearts_100226/20100226?hub=TopStoriesV2.
[edit] External links
Hospital for Sick Children official website
SickKids Foundation website
