GTA Sneak peek at $50M emergency room
Filed Under Kitchen Curtain | Posted on February 21, 2008
Quietly and without fanfare, Sunnybrook hospital has opened a $50 million emergency department capable of handling everything from multiple trauma cases to outbreaks of infectious disease.While the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre ER won’t get an official ribbon-cutting ceremony until construction is complete at the end of this year, the Star got a sneak peak recently.Everything here is state-of-the-art, said Teresa Korogyi, patient care manager in charge of the day-to-day operations of the emergency department.Sunnybrook is a regional trauma centre whose specially trained health teams treat 1,200 critically injured or ill patients each year.One of the highlights of the recently opened ER is a new trauma room that can handle four seriously injured patients at one time, double the previous capacity. Patients injured in car or motorcycle collisions, stabbings, shootings and suicide attempts, or who need urgent care for any reason, are wheeled directly into the trauma room.A new X-ray machine hangs from the ceiling, where it’s out of the way when health-care workers descend upon a trauma patient. Lead paint on the walls prevents radiation escaping the room. Trays for medical supplies and equipment are suspended from walls and ceilings.Beside the trauma room is the green zone, a 15-bed area around a central nursing station that can be completely sealed off during an infectious disease outbreak. Each of the beds is in an individual bay separated by walls, not curtains.The whole pod can be turned into a negative-pressure area, said Korogyi. Such rooms, which can be sealed to ensure contaminated air doesn’t escape, were at a premium during the SARS crisis in 2003. The green zone also has two psychiatric rooms, with heavy chairs patients can’t throw, and sturdy walls they can’t punch through. Less-urgent cases will be treated in the ER’s orange zone, where patients wait in chairs rather than on stretchers after being seen by a doctor, to free beds for urgent cases.Only 24 beds are open so far. When renovations updating and connecting the old ER with the new are finished in December, the area will hold 48 stretcher bays.
Tags: curta, curtain, health, punch, reno, turdRelated posts
Leave a Reply