The hospital is located near the intersection of Queen Street and Yonge Street in Downtown Toronto's Garden District. The hospital serves a diverse population that includes the affluent condominium complexes in Harbourfront, the underprivileged of the inner city ofRegent Park, and the gay and lesbian community in Church and Wellesley. The hospital has 463 inpatient beds and extensive outpatient clinics. The current Physician-in-Chief is Dr. Sharon Straus, the Surgeon-in-Chief is Dr. Ori Rotstein and the President and CEO is Dr. Tim Rutledge. The hospital also has a large team of volunteers that contribute their skills and caring to help achieve the Hospital's commitment to healing. The hospital absorbed the Wellesley endoscopy group after Wellesley Hospital was closed. St. Michael's was the subject of a groundbreaking experiment partnering media and medicine. Award-winning documentary filmmaker Katerina Cizek teamed up with frontline health care workers in the National Film Board of Canada's Filmmaker-in-Residence project. The website received the 2008 Webby Award for best online documentary series. In October 2008, St. Michael's was named one of Greater Toronto's Top Employers by Mediacorp Canada Inc., which was announced by the Toronto Star newspaper. The hospital was also named one of the Best Employers for New Canadians for six consecutive years from 2008 to 2013.
History
St. Michael's Hospital was founded in 1892 by the Sisters of St. Joseph, who operated the Notre Dame des Anges, a boarding house for working women. Originally an old Baptist church, the hospital on Bond Street was created in response to care for the poor population in the south end of Toronto. The hospital opened with a bed capacity of 26 and a staff of six doctors and four graduate nurses. Within a year, it was expanded to include two large wards and an emergency department. As early as 1894, St. Michael's Hospital started receiving medical students. It negotiated a formal agreement with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto in 1920 that continues to this day. By 1912, bed capacity had reached 300, and a five-room operating suite was added. Ongoing physical expansion, most prominent in the 1960s, increased the original 26-bed facility to a high of 900 beds. Between 1892 and 1974, St. Michael's school of nursing graduated 81 classes, totalling 5,177 graduates. The school was closed in 1974 when nursing education was moved into the province's community college system. Thereafter, the hospital opened a school for medical record librarians, the first in Canada, and also participated in the preparation of dietitians and X-ray and laboratory technologists. In March 2010, the hospital re-branded itself simply as St. Michael's to reflect its growing movement into medical research. At the same time a new motto: "Inspired Care. Inspiring Science." was also revealed. On 1 August 2017, St. Michael's Hospital merged with St. Joseph's Health Centre and Providence Healthcare to form a new hospital network.
Construction
St. Michael's is undergoing major renovations. The majority of the construction is taking place at the corner of Queen and Victoria Street where they are building the 17-storey Peter Gilgan Patient Care Tower. Construction began in April 2015 and is expected to be completed in 2018. The 250,000-square-foot addition will boast a new main entrance and an Emergency department nearly doubled in size. It is expected to cost around $301M.
The hospital is also home to the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, with a state-of-the-art building, opened on October 18, 2011. The Knowledge Institute aims to bring together the areas of research and education to bring advances to patient care sooner. It is also the home of the Toronto Platelet Immunobiology Group, a group of scientists and physicians that perform research in platelet and bleeding disorders. St. Michael's is one of a few GTA hospitals with helicopter landing facilities and one of two in downtown Toronto. The helipad is located on the roof of the main hospital wing in the north end at Shuter Street and Victoria Street.
