Page 16 - Sphere No.16 (Apr 2006)

14 SPHERE
City Health, founded by St Michael’s Hospital in 1998, will be
housed in the Keenan Research Centre of the Knowledge Insti-
tute. Here, in a rough downtown neighbourhood, more than
50 research staff, including doctors, biostatisticians, a geogra-
pher and a health economist, look beyond the health issues of
individuals and search for factors that might lie behind them
– everything from housing, transport, domestic violence and
fast-food outlets. The director, social epidemiologist Dr Pa-
tricia Campo, said she was attracted to the institute because
“there seems to be a collective responsibility for the plight of
the poor, and a collective willingness to do something about it.”
The work of the centre includes everything from homelessness
and HIV to immigrant health and gender equality in treatment.
An ambitious project is underway that will map and track 3,500
families in Toronto over 10 years. The research at the unit helps
to change medical practice and public health in Canada and
internationally.
The Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute will provide the Cen-
tre for Research on Inner City Health with more space and
improved facilities, which will help to attract the best talent.
The President of the University of Toronto, Dr David Naylor,
said the Knowledge Institute would make a real impact on the
world. “Now for the first time ever, we will be building on the
education that researchers, educators and clinicians receive
from the university and we will be building on the knowledge
and accelerating their findings to the front lines of care, thus
setting a new standard in health care,” he said. By combining
groundbreaking research and education with practical training
in a hospital facility, he said the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Insti-
tute would serve as a new model for other hospitals in Canada
and for other institutions in the world.
Mr Li is, of course no stranger to Canada. Until recently, he
was the largest individual investor in the Canadian Imperial
Bank of Commerce (CIBC). He sold his stake in CIBC early last
year and donated all the proceeds from the sale, approximately
CAD1.2 billion, to private charitable foundations, including the
Li Ka Shing Foundation and the Li Ka Shing (Canada) Foun-
dation. St Michael’s joins Cambridge University in the United
Kingdom, the University of California at Berkeley in the United
States, Institut Pasteur in France, the University of Hong Kong
and the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Shantou Univer-
sity in Mainland China in receiving a major grant under the Li
Ka Shing Foundation’s biomedical programme.
Mr Li expressed his great admiration for the dedicated ser-
vice the hospital was providing. “It is refreshing and touching
to know that an institution has stayed true to its commitment
to progress and care throughout the years,” he said. “I believe an
equitable society can only be achieved if each and every individ-
ual is ready and willing to do his or her part in capacity empow-
erment through education and the building of a caring society,
particularly through medical and healthcare related projects.
These are two important pillars of hope for any society.”
THE $49 SYMBOL OF HOPE
T HE STORY OF how St Michael’s came to be known
as the “Urban Angel” reaches right back into the
hospital’s history. Shortly after the Sisters of St
Joseph founded the hospital in 1892, they found a dirty
and blackened statue of St Michael the Archangel in a local
pawnshop. They agreed to pay $49 for the statue, money
they had saved from selling old newspapers, and it soon
became a symbol of the hospital’s spirit and commitment.
In 1997, the statue was moved to a new wing from the
hospital’s lobby where it had stood for many years. As it
was lifted away from the wall, the word “Pietasantra”could
be seen chiselled on the back of the statue.The marble had
come from the same quarry in Italy as Michaelangelo used
for his famous Pieta (c1498-99) that can be found in the
Basilica of St Peter in theVatican.The artist and the date of
creation for the statue are not known, nor are the details
of how it made its way to Canada.What is certain is that
for more than a century, the statue of St Michael has been
an inspirational symbol of hope and healing for patients
and their families as well as for
those who work and volunteer
at Toronto’s “Urban Angel”.
The hospital itself originates
from an old Baptist church,
where a boarding house for
working women was operated by
the Sisters of St Joseph. A diph-
theria epidemic was sweeping
Toronto in 1892 and the sisters
answered the call to service and
St Michael’s Hospital was born.
The hospital began with 26 beds
and a staff of six doctors and
four nurses. Within a year, ac-
commodation was increased to
include two large wards and an
emergency department. By 1912, bed capacity reached 300
and a five-room operating suite was added.
As early as 1894, St Michael’s received medical students
and in 1920 negotiated a formal agreement with the Facul-
ty of Medicine at the University of Toronto that continues
to this day. Between 1892 and 1974, St Michael’s School of
Nursing graduated 81 classes of nurses, a total of 5,177
graduates! The school was closed in 1974 when nursing
education was moved into the community college system.