Royal Victoria Hospital, Barrie

The Royal Victoria Hospital, located at 201 Georgian Drive in Barrie, Ontario, Canada, was established in 1891 as the Barrie General Hospital. It was originally opened on Duckworth Street, near Ardagh's Grove, as a small cottage with just four beds.

The Royal Victoria Hospital is the only hospital in Barrie serving city residents as well as patients from a huge geographical region including Simcoe County and the districts of Muskoka and Parry Sound.

With a team of over 200 physicians, 1,800 staff members and 1,100 volunteers, the RVH provides healthcare specializing in Cancer Care, Surgical Services, Critical Care, Mental Health Rehabilitation Services, as well as Women and Children's programs.

Vision and Mission
Delivering Exceptional Care while Promoting a Healthy Community that embraces the individual. To be a Dynamic Partner contributing to an Evolving Integrated Health System while providing Compassionate and Exceptional Services. Royal Victoria Hospital values innovation, compassion, collaboration, accountability and excellence.

Facilities
RVH presently has 297 beds plus 18 bassinets in the Advanced Level II Special Care Nursery. The number of beds is broken down as follows:
 * 40 Complex Continuing Care beds
 * 16 Critical Care beds
 * 25 Mental Health beds
 * 170 General Medical/Surgical beds
 * 22 Obstetrical beds
 * 9 Paediatric beds
 * 14 Rehabilitation beds

There are in excess of 80,000 visits to the E.R., annually. RVH has 2,400 births each year. Since opening in 1997, activities across the board have virtually doubled. Extraordinary growth has occurred in surgical services, cancer care and diagnostic support services.

"I Believe" campaign
"I Believe" is the Royal Victoria Hospital's expansion project. It means a larger facility in Barrie, with expanded services, new programs, more beds, and, the new Simcoe-Muskoka Regional Cancer Centre – all combining to meet local and regional patient needs now and in the future.

This is a remarkable project that will have a dramatic impact on the hospital, the community – and the entire region.

The hospital is often filled to capacity, with essentially every bed occupied. Paramedics often have to wait to unload patients because every stretcher in the Emergency Department is full. The critical bed shortage leaves sick patients lying on stretchers in hallways of the ER, when they should be resting comfortably in a hospital bed. This year alone, more than 7,000 admitted patients spent time in an ER hallway. Doctors and nurses find themselves scrambling to accommodate the growing demand in a facility they admit is “woefully inadequate. ”RVH’s Emerg is one of the busiest in the province with more than 75,000 visits a year.

It’s no surprise the ER’s Clinical Director Dr. Jeff Eisen is becoming increasingly concerned. "Patients are not meant to wait for long periods of time in the ER. It’s noisy, bright, and busy, the mattresses are thin, there are no windows and that can be confusing for elderly patients, and it just doesn’t have the kind of support these patients need," he says.

Temporary solutions have been put into action, such as turning a dining room into a patient area when crowding is at its worst.

Phase One will include approximately 100 additional beds for RVH, and the entire project will double the size of the current hospital. The expansion project also includes the construction of the regional cancer centre, as well as a larger ER, imaging department and augmented operating suites.

As this area’s population grows, so does demand for hospital care. Currently, 40 per cent of RVH services are used by patients living outside the City of Barrie. Many residents of Innisfil, Essa, Oro-Medonte and Springwater Townships call RVH their community hospital. And the service region grows significantly for specialty care.