Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto)

Victoria Hospital for Sick Children

Nurse and orderly transport child to operating room, c. 1915

Peter Gilgan Centre for Research and Learning

During 1875, an eleven-room house was rented for CA$320 (equivalent to $8,134 in 2020) a year by a Toronto women's bible study group led by Elizabeth McMaster.[3] Opened on March 1,[4] they set up six iron cots and "declared open a hospital 'for the admission and treatment of all sick children.'" Their first patient, a scalding victim named Maggie, came in on April 3. Forty-four patients were admitted to the hospital in its first year of operation and sixty-seven others were treated in outpatient clinics.[5]

In 1876 the hospital moved to larger facilities. In 1891 the hospital moved from rented premises to a building constructed for it at College and Elizabeth streets where it would remain for sixty years. This old building, known as the Victoria Hospital for Sick Children, is now the Toronto area headquarters of Canadian Blood Services. In 1951 the hospital moved to its present University Avenue location, on the grounds where Canadian-born movie star Mary Pickford's childhood home once stood.[5]

In 1972,[6] the hospital was equipped with a rooftop helipad (CNW8).[7]

From 1980-81, the hospital was the site of a series of baby deaths.[8]

The hospital was an early leader in the fields of food safety and nutrition. In 1908 a pasteurization facility for milk was established at the hospital, the first in Toronto, and 30 years before milk pasteurization became mandatory.[9] Researchers at the hospital invented the infant cereal, Pablum. The research that led to the discovery of insulin took place nearby at the University of Toronto and was soon applied at the hospital. Doctor Frederick Banting, one of the researchers, had served his internship at SickKids Hospital and went on to become an attending physician there. In 1963 William Thornton Mustard developed the Mustard surgical procedure used to help correct heart problems in blue baby syndrome.[9] In 1989, a team of researchers at the hospital discovered the gene responsible for cystic fibrosis.[10]

The hospital housed the Motherisk Drug Testing Laboratory.[11] At the request of various child protection agencies 16,000 hair samples were tested from 2005 to 2015. Former Ontario Appeal Court judge Susan Lang reviewed Motherisk Drug Testing Laboratory and determined that they were not qualified to do forensic testing. Lang also stated "That SickKids failed to exercise meaningful oversight over MDTL's work must be considered in the context of the hospital's experience with Dr. Charles Smith".[12] The 2008 Goudge Report found Dr. Charles Smith, whose forensic testimony led to wrongful convictions in the deaths of children, was also not qualified to do forensic testing.[13]

The hospital is in the initial stages of expansion. In 2017 it established the "SickKids VS Limits" fundraising campaign that will continue until 2022 to raise $1.5 billion for the expansion project.[14][15] The funds will be used to build a patient care centre on University Avenue, a support centre on Elizabeth Street, to renovate the atrium, and to fund pediatric health research.[15]

To provide the required area for the buildings, demolition of existing structures was required. This included removal of a skyway spanning Elizabeth Street, demolition of the Elizabeth McMaster Building at the northeast corner of Elizabeth Street and Elm Street, and demolition of the laboratory and administrative building.[16]^: 26–31

Construction of the 22-storey Patient Support Centre administrative building will occur on the site of the Elizabeth McMaster Building, and will be completed in 2022. The Peter Gilgan Family Patient Care Tower is expected to open in 2029, and the atrium renovation to be completed by 2031.[16]

• Peter Czerwinski (born 1985), competitive eater known as "Furious Pete"; admitted as a teen while battling anorexia[17]
• Mel Hague (born 1943), author and country singer; admitted at age 9 for infantile paralysis (now known as cerebral palsy)
• Morgan Holmes, sociologist; had a clitorectomy at age 7[18]
• Peter G. Kavanagh (1953-2016), radio and television producer; was treated for paralytic poliomyelitis in infancy and childhood[19]
• Aqsa Parvez (1991-2007), murder victim; died at the hospital[20]
• Leonard Thompson (1908-1935), the first diabetic patient to be treated with insulin; received treatment as a teen[21]
• Peter Woodcock (1939-2010), serial killer; was treated extensively throughout his childhood

• Benjamin Alman, professor and head of the division of orthopedic surgery, senior scientist in developmental and stem cell biology
• Jean Augustine (born 1937), a member of the hospital's Board of Trustees
• Harry Bain (1921-2001), paediatrician (1951-85)
• Frederick Banting (1891-1941), resident surgeon
• Sonia Baxendale, member of the board of trustees
• Jalynn Bennett (1943-2015), a member of the Board of Directors
• Zulfiqar Bhutta, co-director of the centre for global child health
• Susan Bradley (born 1940), served as Head of the division of child psychiatry and was psychiatrist-in-chief
• Manuel Buchwald (born 1940), was staff geneticist, scientist, senior scientist, and director of the hospital's research institute
• Kevin Chan, emergency physician
• Jim Coutts (1938-2013), a member of the board and foundation
• A. Jamie Cuticchia (born 1966), director of bioinformatics
• Arlington Franklin Dungy (????-2016), chief of paedodontics
• John Taylor Fotheringham (1860-1940), staff member
• Julie Forman-Kay, scientist
• Vicky Forster, postdoctoral researcher
• Anna Goldenberg, senior scientist
• William A. Goldie (1873-1950), chief of the infection division
• Camilla Gryski, therapeutic clown
• Mary Jo Haddad, was the President and CEO of the hospital for 10 years
• Mark Henkelman, senior scientist emeritus
• Lisa Houghton, worked at the hospital
• Sanford Jackson, research biochemist and biochemist-in-chief
• Monica Justice, program head of genetics and genome biology
• Lewis E. Kay (born 1961), senior scientist in molecular medicine
• Shaf Keshavjee, became a director of the Toronto lung transplant program in 1997 and later a scientist in 2012
• Gideon Koren (born 1947), doctor
• Arlette Lefebvre (born 1947), child psychiatrist
• Kellie Leitch (born 1970), orthopaedic pediatric surgeon
• James MacCallum (1860-1943), ophthalmologist
• Sabi Marwah (born 1951), board member
• Michael McCain (born 1958), serves on the board of trustees
• Kathryn McGarry, critical care nurse
• Pleasantine Mill, cell biologist who worked at the hospital
• Freda Miller, developmental neurobiologist
• Caroline Mulroney (born 1974), board member
• Edward G. Murphy (1921-2020), senior staff member
• Aideen Nicholson (1927-2019), social worker
• Isaac Odame, staff physician
• Edmund Boyd Osler (1845-1924), trustee
• Blake Papsin (born 1959), otolaryngologist
• Rulan S. Parekh, former senior scientist in child health evaluative sciences and associate chief of clinical research
• Debra Pepler, senior associate scientist
• Audrius V. Plioplys, chief resident of child neurology
• John Russell Reynolds (1828-1896), assistant physician
• Lisa Robinson, former head of the division of nephrology
• Edward S. Rogers III (born 1969), director
• Johanna Rommens, senior scientist emeritus
• Miriam Rossi (1937-2018), pediatrician in the division of adolescent medicine
• James Rutka (born 1956), subspecializes in pediatric neurosurgery
• Robert B. Salter (1924-2010), surgeon
• Harry Schachter (born 1933), headed the hospital's division of biochemistry research
• Chandrakant Shah (born 1936), honorary staff
• Louis Siminovitch (1920-2021), helped establish the department of genetics at the hospital and worked as geneticist in-chief
• Sheila Singh, neurosurgeon
• Charles R. Smith, head forensic pathologist
• Valerie Speirs, professor
• Ambrose Thomas Stanton (1875-1938), house surgeon
• Martin J. Steinbach (1941-2017), senior scientist in the hospital's department of ophthalmology
• Anna Taddio (born 1967), adjunct senior scientist and clinical pharmacist
• Kathleen P. Taylor (born 1957), member of the hospital's board of trustees
• Ahmad Teebi (1949-2010), clinical geneticist
• John M. Thompson (born 1949), vice chairman of the board of trustees
• Margaret W. Thompson (1920-2014), genetics researcher who worked at the hospital
• Richard M. Thomson (born 1933), served on the board of directors
• James Thorburn (1830-1905), physician of the hospital's boys' home
• Frederick Tisdall (1893-1949), pediatrician
• James Marshall Tory (1930-2013), chairman of the board
• Lap-Chee Tsui (born 1950), a member of the hospital's department of genetics
• Norma Ford Walker (1893-1968), was the hospital's first director of the department of genetics
• Prem Watsa (born 1950), a member of the board of trustees
• Bryan R.G. Williams, held various positions at the hospital
• Ronald Worton (born 1942), director of the hospital's diagnostic cytogenetics laboratory
• Stanley Zlotkin, clinical nutritionist

• Braithwaite, Max (1974). Sick Kids: the story of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. ISBN 0-7710-1636-0.
• Wright, David (2016). SickKids: The History of the Hospital for Sick Children. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1442647237.

• The Hospital for Sick Children website
• SickKids Foundation website
• Media related to Hospital for Sick Children at Wikimedia Commons