Vancouver General Hospital
Encyclopedia
Vancouver General Hospital (VGH or Vancouver General) is a medical facility located in Vancouver
, British Columbia
. It is the largest facility in the Vancouver Hospital and Health Sciences Centre
(VHHSC) group of medical facilities. VGH is also the second largest hospital
in Canada
, after The Ottawa Hospital
.
Vancouver Coastal Health
(VCH) is responsible for the operations of Vancouver General Hospital.
(CPR) first opened in 1886 as a nine-bed tent, its primary use to treat railway workers. On June 13, 1886, a fire destroyed the tent hospital and by July, a new, one-storey building was built. In September, the City of Vancouver took over the facility, which became the City Hospital. In 1888, located at the southern edge of the original Gastown
settlement, a 35-bed hospital opened, as the tent infirmary becomes too small. The upstairs ward was for female patients, the downstairs ward for males. In 1899, the Vancouver City Hospital Training School for Nurses was opened. In 1902, British Columbia provincial legislature transferred control from the city's board of health to a board of 15 directors. Vancouver City Hospital was renamed to Vancouver General Hospital. In 1906, in Fairview Ridge, overlooking False Creek
, a new building, the Heather Pavilion, began housing staff and patients. The University of British Columbia Medical School opened clinical facilities at VGH in 1950.
In 1959, VGH opened the "Centennial Pavilion" (named in commemoration of the centennial of the founding of British Columbia as a British Crown colony
, in 1858), which at the time was the largest part of the VGH facilities.
In the 1960s, VGH build Canada's first intensive care nursery, equipped with the first effective apparatus used for natural breathing in infants with respiratory failure
.
In 1996, VGH opened the first three floors of its newly constructed Laurel Pavilion. In 2000, the Laurel Pavilion was renamed to the Jim Pattison
Pavilion and construction of the final 12 floors began in 2001. The Jim Pattison Pavilion opened in 2003.
In 2004, the ground-breaking for new Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre began. This new building, adjacent to the Jim Pattison Pavilion, opened in August 2006 to provide acute day care services in a variety of areas.
The Blusson Spinal Cord
Centre, the world’s largest, most advanced and most comprehensive facility devoted to spinal cord injury
research and patient care was opened in November 2008. The six-storey, $45-million centre is home to ICORD (International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries) and is a partnership of the University of British Columbia
, the Rick Hansen
Foundation, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, and the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation.
Ground was broken September 2009 for the new Robert H.N. Ho Research Centre. The seven-storey, 69350 sq ft (6,442.8 m²) facility will house three of VGH’s key research programs: the Vancouver Prostate Centre
at VGH; the Centre for Hip Health and Mobility; and the Ovarian Cancer
Research Initiative.
VGH is the largest hospital in British Columbia, offering specialized and tertiary services to residents in Vancouver. The hospital accepts patients referred from other parts of the province requiring highly specialized services. Approximately 40% of the hospital's cases come from outside the Vancouver region.
In addition to providing specialized and tertiary medical services, VGH is also a teaching hospital
in affiliation with the University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine, providing training and advanced education to students from all disciplines. Unique in Canada is the Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre at VGH which includes the UBC Faculty of Medicine facilities. The facility houses teaching space for about 250 third and fourth year medical students
and 500 postgraduate residents, and nine Faculty of Medicine programs as well as the UBC medical school library.
VGH's main cafeteria
, Sassafras Cafeteria, is located on the second floor of the Jim Pattison Pavilion. The Jim Pattison Pavilion also has a café at its main entrance called Café Ami.
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
. It is the largest facility in the Vancouver Hospital and Health Sciences Centre
Vancouver Hospital and Health Sciences Centre
Vancouver Hospital and Health Sciences Centre is a medical facility located in Vancouver, British Columbia. The VHHSC is the second largest hospital in Canada, with 1,900 beds and nearly 116,000 patients each year. VHHSC employs 9500 staff and utilizes 1000 volunteers...
(VHHSC) group of medical facilities. VGH is also the second largest hospital
Hospital
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....
in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, after The Ottawa Hospital
The Ottawa Hospital
The Ottawa Hospital or L'Hôpital d'Ottawa is a major, non-profit, public, university teaching hospital in Ottawa made up of the former Grace Hospital, Riverside Hospital, Ottawa General Hospital and Ottawa Civic Hospital. It is a 1,195-bed academic health sciences centre...
.
Vancouver Coastal Health
Vancouver Coastal Health
Vancouver Coastal Health is a regional health authority providing direct and contracted health services including primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary care, home and community care, mental health services, population and preventive health and addictions services in part of Greater Vancouver...
(VCH) is responsible for the operations of Vancouver General Hospital.
History
The Canadian Pacific RailwayCanadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...
(CPR) first opened in 1886 as a nine-bed tent, its primary use to treat railway workers. On June 13, 1886, a fire destroyed the tent hospital and by July, a new, one-storey building was built. In September, the City of Vancouver took over the facility, which became the City Hospital. In 1888, located at the southern edge of the original Gastown
Gastown
Gastown is a national historic site in Vancouver, British Columbia, at the northeast end of Downtown adjacent to the Downtown Eastside. Its historical boundaries were the waterfront , Columbia Street, Hastings Street, and Cambie Street, which were the borders of the 1870 townsite survey, the proper...
settlement, a 35-bed hospital opened, as the tent infirmary becomes too small. The upstairs ward was for female patients, the downstairs ward for males. In 1899, the Vancouver City Hospital Training School for Nurses was opened. In 1902, British Columbia provincial legislature transferred control from the city's board of health to a board of 15 directors. Vancouver City Hospital was renamed to Vancouver General Hospital. In 1906, in Fairview Ridge, overlooking False Creek
False Creek
False Creek is a short inlet in the heart of Vancouver. It separates downtown from the rest of the city. It was named by George Henry Richards during his Hydrographic survey of 1856-63. Science World is located at its eastern end and the Burrard Street Bridge crosses its western end. False Creek is...
, a new building, the Heather Pavilion, began housing staff and patients. The University of British Columbia Medical School opened clinical facilities at VGH in 1950.
In 1959, VGH opened the "Centennial Pavilion" (named in commemoration of the centennial of the founding of British Columbia as a British Crown colony
Colony of British Columbia
The Colony of British Columbia was a crown colony in British North America from 1858 until 1866. At its creation, it physically constituted approximately half the present day Canadian province of British Columbia, since it did not include the Colony of Vancouver Island, the vast and still largely...
, in 1858), which at the time was the largest part of the VGH facilities.
In the 1960s, VGH build Canada's first intensive care nursery, equipped with the first effective apparatus used for natural breathing in infants with respiratory failure
Respiratory failure
The term respiratory failure, in medicine, is used to describe inadequate gas exchange by the respiratory system, with the result that arterial oxygen and/or carbon dioxide levels cannot be maintained within their normal ranges. A drop in blood oxygenation is known as hypoxemia; a rise in arterial...
.
In 1996, VGH opened the first three floors of its newly constructed Laurel Pavilion. In 2000, the Laurel Pavilion was renamed to the Jim Pattison
Jim Pattison
James Allen "Jim" Pattison, OC, OBC is a Vancouver-based Canadian entrepreneur who is the president, managing director, chief executive officer, chairman and sole owner of the Jim Pattison Group, the third largest privately held company in Canada...
Pavilion and construction of the final 12 floors began in 2001. The Jim Pattison Pavilion opened in 2003.
In 2004, the ground-breaking for new Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre began. This new building, adjacent to the Jim Pattison Pavilion, opened in August 2006 to provide acute day care services in a variety of areas.
The Blusson Spinal Cord
Spinal cord
The spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular bundle of nervous tissue and support cells that extends from the brain . The brain and spinal cord together make up the central nervous system...
Centre, the world’s largest, most advanced and most comprehensive facility devoted to spinal cord injury
Spinal cord injury
A spinal cord injury refers to any injury to the spinal cord that is caused by trauma instead of disease. Depending on where the spinal cord and nerve roots are damaged, the symptoms can vary widely, from pain to paralysis to incontinence...
research and patient care was opened in November 2008. The six-storey, $45-million centre is home to ICORD (International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries) and is a partnership of the University of British Columbia
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...
, the Rick Hansen
Rick Hansen
Richard M. Hansen, CC, OBC is a Canadian Paralympian and an activist for people with spinal cord injuries. Following a car crash at the age of 15, Hansen sustained a spinal cord injury that paralyzed him from the waist down. Hansen is most famous for his Man In Motion World Tour...
Foundation, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, and the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation.
Ground was broken September 2009 for the new Robert H.N. Ho Research Centre. The seven-storey, 69350 sq ft (6,442.8 m²) facility will house three of VGH’s key research programs: the Vancouver Prostate Centre
Vancouver Prostate Centre
The Vancouver Prostate Centre is a prostate cancer research centre located in Vancouver, British Columbia. It is a National Centre of Excellence and a designated Centre of Excellence for Commercialization and Research...
at VGH; the Centre for Hip Health and Mobility; and the Ovarian Cancer
Ovarian cancer
Ovarian cancer is a cancerous growth arising from the ovary. Symptoms are frequently very subtle early on and may include: bloating, pelvic pain, difficulty eating and frequent urination, and are easily confused with other illnesses....
Research Initiative.
Facilities and amenities
In addition to providing specialized and tertiary medical services, VGH is also a teaching hospital
Teaching hospital
A teaching hospital is a hospital that provides clinical education and training to future and current doctors, nurses, and other health professionals, in addition to delivering medical care to patients...
in affiliation with the University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine, providing training and advanced education to students from all disciplines. Unique in Canada is the Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre at VGH which includes the UBC Faculty of Medicine facilities. The facility houses teaching space for about 250 third and fourth year medical students
Medical school
A medical school is a tertiary educational institution—or part of such an institution—that teaches medicine. Degree programs offered at medical schools often include Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, Bachelor/Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Philosophy, master's degree, or other post-secondary...
and 500 postgraduate residents, and nine Faculty of Medicine programs as well as the UBC medical school library.
VGH's main cafeteria
Cafeteria
A cafeteria is a type of food service location in which there is little or no waiting staff table service, whether a restaurant or within an institution such as a large office building or school; a school dining location is also referred to as a dining hall or canteen...
, Sassafras Cafeteria, is located on the second floor of the Jim Pattison Pavilion. The Jim Pattison Pavilion also has a café at its main entrance called Café Ami.
Facts and figures
- One emergency departmentEmergency departmentAn emergency department , also known as accident & emergency , emergency room , emergency ward , or casualty department is a medical treatment facility specialising in acute care of patients who present without prior appointment, either by their own means or by ambulance...
- 19 operating rooms
- 40 outpatient clinics
- 27,400 inpatient (overnight) visits per year
- 294,300 clinic visits per year
- 75,500 emergency department visits per year
- 23,000 outpatient and inpatient surgicalSurgerySurgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...
cases per year
Divisions
- AlzheimerAlzheimer's diseaseAlzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
Clinic - Anxiety DisordersAnxiety disorderAnxiety disorder is a blanket term covering several different forms of abnormal and pathological fear and anxiety. Conditions now considered anxiety disorders only came under the aegis of psychiatry at the end of the 19th century. Gelder, Mayou & Geddes explains that anxiety disorders are...
Unit - BC Injury Prevention Centre
- Centre for Cardiac RehabilitationCardiopulmonary rehabilitationCardiac Rehabilitation is a branch of rehabilitation medicine dealing with optimizing physical function in patients with cardiac disease. CR services are generally provided in an outpatient setting as comprehensive, long-term programs involving medical evaluation, prescribed exercise, cardiac...
and Risk Factor Management - BreastfeedingBreastfeedingBreastfeeding is the feeding of an infant or young child with breast milk directly from female human breasts rather than from a baby bottle or other container. Babies have a sucking reflex that enables them to suck and swallow milk. It is recommended that mothers breastfeed for six months or...
Centre - Domestic ViolenceDomestic violenceDomestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, battering, family violence, and intimate partner violence , is broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, or cohabitation...
- Eye Care Centre
- LeukemiaLeukemiaLeukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
/Bone MarrowBone marrowBone marrow is the flexible tissue found in the interior of bones. In humans, bone marrow in large bones produces new blood cells. On average, bone marrow constitutes 4% of the total body mass of humans; in adults weighing 65 kg , bone marrow accounts for approximately 2.6 kg...
Transplant Program - Mary Pack ArthritisArthritisArthritis is a form of joint disorder that involves inflammation of one or more joints....
Centre - TraumaTrauma (medicine)Trauma refers to "a body wound or shock produced by sudden physical injury, as from violence or accident." It can also be described as "a physical wound or injury, such as a fracture or blow." Major trauma can result in secondary complications such as circulatory shock, respiratory failure and death...
Services/OrthopedicOrthopedicsOrthopedics is the study of the musculoskeletal system. The Greek word 'ortho' means straight or correct and 'pedics' comes from the Greek 'pais' meaning children. For many centuries, orthopedists have been involved in the treatment of crippled children...
Trauma ServiceTrauma centerA trauma center is a hospital equipped to provide comprehensive emergency medical services to patients suffering traumatic injuries. Trauma centers grew into existence out of the realization that traumatic injury is a disease process unto itself requiring specialized and experienced... - Outpatient PsychiatryPsychiatryPsychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
Clinic - CIBCCanadian Imperial Bank of CommerceThe Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce is one of Canada's chartered banks, fifth largest by deposits. The bank is headquartered at Commerce Court in Toronto, Ontario. CIBC's Institution Number is 010, and its SWIFT code is CIBCCATT....
Centre for Patients and Families - Vancouver Prostate CentreVancouver Prostate CentreThe Vancouver Prostate Centre is a prostate cancer research centre located in Vancouver, British Columbia. It is a National Centre of Excellence and a designated Centre of Excellence for Commercialization and Research...
- Short Term Assessment and Treatment Centre (STAT)
- Skin Care Centre
- Work Adjustment Program
- Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute
- Centre for Hip Health
External links
- Vancouver Coastal Health
- Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) - Banfield Pavilion
- Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) - Centennial Pavilion
- Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) - Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre
- Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) - Health Centre
- Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) - Jim Pattison Pavilion
- Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) - Jim Pattison Pavilion - Emergency Department
- Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) Research Pavilion
- VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation
- GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre
- Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute