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Hospital grabs sick kids’ rooms for offices
by Scott Gilbreath ~ February 12th, 2009
Six newly built rooms at Atlantic Canada’s largest children’s hospital, the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, are being renovated for use as office space. The rooms being transformed into offices are, moreover, the most desirable spaces on the unit—with views overlooking a large tree-filled green space in Halifax’s south end. (Map here.)
Several patients’ families wrote letters describing the changes to a woman who had donated $50,000 toward the new unit, who is now very upset.
Wendy Black, who runs a small, private foundation in Chester, said she received eight letters in November, all of them complaining that six of the unit’s rooms would be transformed into offices during a year-long renovation at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax.
“This has been handled very poorly, disgracefully,” Black said in an interview, adding she is not angry at the hospital staff even though she wasn’t told about the change before the letters arrived.
“I was heartbroken when I read the letters. They really made me sick. They saddened me.”
Eighteen rooms are not affected by the renovations. They overlook an inner courtyard and a parkade.
Hospital spokeswoman Jocelyn Vine assures everyone that the views had nothing to do with the choice of office space.
It’s a disastrous week at the IWK, PR-wise. After a mother was asked to cover up while breastfeeding at the hospital, a squad of offended lactating mothers decided to stage a “nurse-in”. Watch out!
Shannon Hardy and her supporters sat in the foyer of the children’s hospital in Halifax and fed their babies.
They decided to stage the peaceful protest after someone handed Hardy a blanket to cover herself as she fed her son, Griffin, in the foyer last week.
Ms Vine assures everyone that IWK’s policy on breastfeeding is “anywhere, anytime is absolutely ideal”. OK.
UPDATE (13 Feb.): The IWK Foundation has released a statement saying that the six rooms will be re-opened to patients at the end of 2010 and that donors were consulted before the rooms were changed to non-patient use. The full statement is posted here.
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February 13th, 2009 at 12:23 PM
Please share the following message with your readers. Thanks!
http://www.iwkfoundation.org/
February 13th, 2009 at 01:58 PM
Hi,
I wish people learned both sides of a story before they commented. The rooms in question were funded by donors. Each donor for the rooms in questions were asked by the hospital if they (the donors) agreed if the rooms could be used for non-patient use. The donors wholeheartedly agreed. Throughout the process, the donors have been kept informed and the donors have supported the hospital’s decision.
I understand why some families may be upset but I really do hope that the parents had spoken to the hospital first to get their side before speaking out. The IWK is an absolutley amazing place and it does so much good and saves so many lives and its unfortunate that an incident like this will scar its name and reputation.
Think of the thousands of donors who give to the hospital each day wanting to help kids who have nowhere else to go in the Maritimes and something like this may cause them to not donate, leading less funding for the hospital which in turn will only hurt the thousands of children and women who rely on the IWK.