In my nine months at Sunnybrook, September 12 was the most unforgettable day. It started early, at 4:30am. A quick shower, and then zipping up Bayview to the hospital in the dark of Sunday morning. I dropped off my car, hopped in the Sunnybrook shuttle that takes staff downtown, and landed on the doorstep of 76 Grenville Street at exactly 6am.
The place was abuzz with hundreds of Sunnybrook staff, Toronto EMS workers and even Sick Kids staff. Everyone was wearing color-coded T-shirts for easy identification, and there was an energy usually reserved to the theatre district on a Friday night. But Sunnybrook was about to enact its finest performance yet, moving dozens of high-risk mothers, and delicate preemies, 9 kilometers up to their new home at 2075 Bayview Avenue. Years of planning, preparation and prayer had finally collided: it was moving day!
It’s no small feat moving the most delicate patients down the hall, let alone to an entirely new building uptown. But all the prep work paid off in droves. With military precision, high-risk mothers, women in labour, and glass incubators cocooning the tiniest citizens of our city rolled out of the dark halls of 76 Grenville, and into the bright and beautiful space they deserve at Sunnybrook. The new Women & Babies Program was now officially open for business, and their business is providing unparalleled care.
I followed the procession of patients, movers and health care staff from start to the finish, camera in hand (and heart on sleeve). There’s nothing quite like seeing a 200 pound physician cradling a 2 pound preemie, or meeting the grandparents of the first baby born in the new space (it was a boy, just in case you were curious!). With hands draped around contracting bellies, and new parents keeping in stride with incubators in motion, each patient was brought up to their space one by one. The parade of patients soon dissolved into 120,000 square feet of space. It was truly amazing to see.
Now that it’s all done, I’d equate the move to childbirth itself. Anticipation turns to pain and then to joy when it’s all over. As with parenting, now the real work begins for the new unit. Luckily, the fancy new digs make that easy to do.
Learn more about Sunnybrook’s Women & Babies Program
