New provincial grants will help keep the air clear at Rouge Valley Health System’s Centenary campus in places where that really counts.
The nearly $3.4 million announced Wednesday, Aug. 19, will be used over two fiscal years to upgrade operating room air handling systems at the Ellesmere Road campus, as well as to improve general air distribution, fuel oil distribution, and for masonry repair.
Amelia McCutcheon, the hospital’s vice president of surgery said operating rooms have to stay sterile and maintain continuous pressure.
Proper control over air handling helps patients through long procedures, and is easier on sensitive pieces of equipment, she said.
“If it gets too hot, they don’t function well,” explained McCutheon, adding the upgrades were being done to fix certain hospital systems before they break.
“There’s a lifespan (for the system infrastructure). The lifespan has been reached.”
Scarborough-Guildwood MPP Mitzie Hunter said the grants from Ontario’s Health Infrastructure Renewal Fund were for “minor, yet critical” infrastructure improvements. “Of course, this will provide better patient care at the end of the day.”
Hunter’s appearance was part of Premier Kathleen Wynne’s announcement the same day promising $125 million in HIRF grants to “renew critical infrastructure” at hospitals across the province, by spending on such things as roof repairs, air conditioning and back-up generators.
The Scarborough-Guildwood MPP made her presentation to the Central East Local Health Integration Network CEO Deborah Hammons and to RVHS CEO Andree Robichaud, who has been in her post for just three months.
The grants cover part of the massive costs involved in maintaining the aging Centenary, which merged with the Ajax and Pickering General Hospital in 1998 and now has a total of 2,800 staff and employees at both sites.
Centenary’s emergency department is considered too small and now serves more than twice the patients it was built to handle.
The hospital’s application to have the department renovated is frozen while a provincial panel of experts studies the hospitals and community needs in Scarborough and West Durham.
The state of Centenary and the campuses of The Scarborough Hospital – and what should ultimately be done with them – are possible topics when panel members meet residents for a “town hall” next Wednesday, August 26, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. in St. Paul’s L’Amoureaux Centre at Finch and Warden avenues.
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