Dr. James Beecroft has the distinction of being the last Emergency Department Physician to care for patients at the St. Catharines General Site ED.
Dr. Rafi Setrak, Chief of Emergency, St. Catharines Site, in front of the new St. Catharines Site ED with the unveiled Emergency sign this morning.
St. Catharines, ON – The transition to providing care at the new St. Catharines Site is officially underway, with operations winding down at the St. Catharines General Site.
Early activity:
- The Ontario Street Site Urgent Care closed successfully at 10 p.m. on Saturday, March 23rd, 2013.
- The new St. Catharines Site Emergency and Urgent Care opened at 6 a.m. Sunday, March 24, 2013
- First emergency patient at new St. Catharines Site seen at 6:03 a.m.
- Three patients seen by 6:30 a.m.
- First CT ordered at new St. Catharines Site before 8 a.m.
- Between 7 and 7:30 a.m. patients began transfer from the St. Catharines General Site, Greater Niagara General, and nephrology patients from the Welland Site
- The transfer is complete of all Mental Health inpatients from the Welland Site to the new St. Catharines Site
- The transfer is complete of all Kidney Care and Mental Health inpatients from the Greater Niagara General Site to the new St. Catharines Site.
“Hundreds of staff and partners from Niagara EMS, Niagara Patient Transfer, Community Patient Transfer Group and HCR met at 6 a.m. this morning to kick off this exciting and historic move to the St. Catharines Site. Colour coded team t-shirts filled the room as people anxiously awaited the start of the process.”
Gloria Kain, Chief Planning and Development Officer
“Our number one goal today is achieving a safe and seamless transition to the new facility without unnecessary interruption to patient care. The move is about people working together to make it a better place for healing and hope for our patients and for our communities. Our team is excited about the possibilities ahead.” Susan Kwolek, Vice President Patient Services, Executive Lead, St. Catharines General Hospital
C. difficle outbreak declared over
An outbreak of C. difficile at the Medical Unit, C3East, St. Catharines General Site has been declared over today.
An outbreak is declared when the number of hospital-associated cases is higher than what is seen as the normal threshold. There were a total of eight cases associated with the outbreak.
The outbreak was declared on February 22, 2013.
“Increased infection prevention and control measures were put into place immediately to help control the spread of infection and bring the outbreak to an end as quickly as possible. There were no new hospital-associated infection transmissions on this unit after March 3, 2013 due to the exemplary efforts of the physicians, staff and volunteers who worked diligently to provide the best possible patient care while ensuring the heightened infection prevention and control measures were maintained.” Dr. Sue Matthews, Interim President & CEO
There are no other outbreaks at the NHS.
Contact: Brady Wood, Chief Communications Officer; brady.wood@niagarahealth.on.ca, 905-380-0884.
Reminder: Media Centre established at Mental Health Entrance
In order to balance the safety and confidentiality requirements of patients/staff and providing regular updates to the media, we are establishing a temporary Media Centre at the Mental Health Entrance of the new St. Catharines Site.
- We will be providing formal updates to the media at 10:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m., and 4:00 p.m. in the established Media Centre at the Mental Health Entrance.
- Media and all other individuals are not permitted to access the site from any other entrance, and are not permitted to interview, photograph or videotape patients or staff involved in the move without permission.
Please note:
- Media should not arrive to the Media Centre earlier than 9:30 a.m.
- Public Relations will meet you in the Mental Health Entrance and work with you to coordinate requests.
- We will work with you throughout the day on requests, for example ‘we’d like to interview a patient who has moved before 4pm’, or ‘we’d like some footage of a patient coming off an ambulance.’
- We will do our best to ensure you capture everything you need, however we will also need to align with staff and patients to ensure we do not interrupt their activity in any way, and also to ensure that we have their written consent for any interviews, photos and video.
Directions to Media Centre via Mental Health Entrance:
- Enter the parking lot from the secondary entrance on First Street Louth (south of Main Entrance)
- Drive past the loading dock ramp. This will lead you to dedicated parking for the Mental Health entrance where there will be ample free parking for media
