OUR EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT IS AMONG THE BUSIEST IN THE PROVINCE
As the only Emergency Department serving southwest Toronto, our top priority is to provide the community with excellent care, support and comfort when they need it most.
It is the first place our neighbours often go when they are experiencing a medical crisis. We have a great track record for delivering speedy and excellent care.
St. Joe’s has one of the busiest Emergency departments in Toronto which sees more than 100,000 visits annually, Our challenge is that we offer this care in a space built for about half the number of people who need us. This needs to change now. If you’ve been to St. Joe’s Emergency, you’ll know that the space is cramped and crowded curtains separate most treatment bays. The space was last updated before SARS happened in 2003 and since then we’ve had millions of people come to us for care.
At the onset of COVID-19, our Emergency Department quickly expanded into new areas of the hospital. We created COVID-19 and non COVID-19 areas of care to keep our patients safe. We continued to keep our promise to provide emergency care 24/7. Our experienced staff treat hundred of patients a day and are well equipped to provide you with the best care possible.
Now as safeguarding against COVID-19 is part of our lives, we need to more permanently expand and renovate our Emergency to meet your needs over the next two years.
100,000+ Annual Visits a Year
18,000 Visits From Seniors 65+
14,000 Paediatric emergency visits
7000 Emergency visits for mental health and/or addiction care
An improved Emergency Department is now open!
The first phase of the Emergency Department redevelopment is now open. Because of your incredible support we’ve just completed the first step in improving our emergency department that will ensure better care for our community. Over the next year the rest of the emergency will be updated and equipped with the latest technology designed to greatly enhance safety and your patient care experience. These improvements were funded entirely by donors in our community and beyond.
When the entire transformation is complete, the new Emergency will be more than 40% larger. It will include a dedicated children’s emergency, additional treatment spaces with better equipment, and expanded resuscitation areas to help continue to serve our more than half a million neighbours.
BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE TO PROVIDE SAFE EMERGENCY CARE.
As you can see from this plan, we are expanding our Emergency Department dramatically and will extend it throughout our Gilgan Family Wing. It’s a double win for patients as we are also expanding and moving our BMO Ambulatory Care Centre to the first floor.
The new Emergency will have more private rooms to maintain social distancing, isolation rooms to ensure the best possible infection control, resuscitation rooms, a private room family consultation with our teams, and newly-designed designated areas for follow up. These new follow up areas will ensure people are safely distanced with the proper partitions and other features to keep everyone safe.
As a community, we need your help to build one of the best emergencies possible at St. Joe’s. The need for separation in COVID-19 reinforces that it is best to provide as much care as possible in one spot rather than moving patients within the hospital for procedures and tests. This means we need to bring testing equipment to our patients wherever we can. You can help make all of this possible.
Our new Emergency will mean: faster testing, quicker results to minimize waiting, and better separation between patients to provide the fastest and best possible care.
New Children's Emergency
With your help, we are also relocating our Children’s Emergency area so it’s separated from our main emergency and will add the child friendly touches as we’ve already done in the CIBC Just for Kids Clinic. The new Children’s Emergency will have a spacious new Kids’ Zone to help keep children distracted from the sickness or pain they are feeling, will employ a fast tracking system to triage and see our youngest patients quickly, and will expand to five private treatment rooms.
But the province doesn’t pay for any of these improvements directly and we’re looking to you – our community – to help us keep our Promise of care. Your support will make our plans a reality. And we need to keep the project moving forward as quickly as possible over the next two years. We need to build in stages as care never stops at St. Joe’s. Your help today can accelerate our plans and move this project along as quickly as possible.