| Vancouver General Hospital | |
| Vancouver Coastal Health | |
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| Vancouver General Hospital's Centennial Pavilion | |
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Location in Vancouver
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| Geography | |
| Location | Vancouver, Lower Mainland, British Columbia, Canada |
| Organization | |
| Care system | Public Medicare (Canada) (MSP) |
| Hospital type | Teaching |
| Affiliated university | UBC Faculty of Medicine |
| Services | |
| Emergency department | Level I trauma center |
| Helipad | TC LID: CBK4 |
| Beds | 955 |
| Speciality | Bone Marrow Transplant and Leukemia, Burns and Plastics, Epilepsy Surgery Program, Organ Transplant, Spinal Cord Injury, Quaternary-level Trauma Care |
| History | |
| Founded | 1906 |
| Links | |
| Website | www.vch.ca |
| Lists | Hospitals in Canada |
Vancouver General Hospital (VGH or Vancouver General) is a medical facility located in Vancouver, British Columbia. It is the largest facility in the Vancouver Hospital and Health Sciences Centre (VHHSC) group of medical facilities. VGH is also the second largest hospital in Canada, after The Ottawa Hospital.
Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) is responsible for the operations of Vancouver General Hospital.
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The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) first opened in 1886 as a nine-bed tent, its primary use to treat railway workers. On June 13, 1886, a fire destroyed the tent hospital and by July, a new, one-storey building was built. In September, the City of Vancouver took over the facility, which became the City Hospital. In 1888, located at the southern edge of the original Gastown settlement, a 35-bed hospital opened, as the tent infirmary becomes too small. The upstairs ward was for female patients, the downstairs ward for males. In 1899, the Vancouver City Hospital Training School for Nurses was opened. In 1902, British Columbia provincial legislature transferred control from the city's board of health to a board of 15 directors. Vancouver City Hospital was renamed to Vancouver General Hospital. In 1906, in Fairview Ridge, overlooking False Creek, a new building, the Heather Pavilion, began housing staff and patients. The University of British Columbia Medical School opened clinical facilities at VGH in 1950.
In 1959, VGH opened the "Centennial Pavilion" (named in commemoration of the centennial of the founding of British Columbia as a British Crown colony, in 1858), which at the time was the largest part of the VGH facilities.
In the 1960s, VGH build Canada's first intensive care nursery, equipped with the first effective apparatus used for natural breathing in infants with respiratory failure.
In 1996, VGH opened the first three floors of its newly constructed Laurel Pavilion. In 2000, the Laurel Pavilion was renamed to the Jim Pattison Pavilion and construction of the final 12 floors began in 2001. The Jim Pattison Pavilion opened in 2003.
In 2004, the ground-breaking for new Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre began. This new building, adjacent to the Jim Pattison Pavilion, opened in August 2006 to provide acute day care services in a variety of areas.
The Blusson Spinal Cord Centre, the world’s largest, most advanced and most comprehensive facility devoted to spinal cord injury research and patient care was opened in November 2008. The six-storey, $45-million centre is home to ICORD (International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries) and is a partnership of the University of British Columbia, the Rick Hansen Foundation, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, and the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation.
Ground was broken September 2009 for the new Robert H.N. Ho Research Centre. The seven-storey, 69,350 sq ft (6,443 m2) facility will house three of VGH’s key research programs: the Vancouver Prostate Centre at VGH; the Centre for Hip Health and Mobility; and the Ovarian Cancer Research Initiative.
VGH is the largest hospital in British Columbia, offering specialized and tertiary services to residents in Vancouver. The hospital accepts patients referred from other parts of the province requiring highly specialized services. Approximately 40% of the hospital's cases come from outside the Vancouver region.
In addition to providing specialized and tertiary medical services, VGH is also a teaching hospital in affiliation with the University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine, providing training and advanced education to students from all disciplines. Unique in Canada is the Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre at VGH which includes the UBC Faculty of Medicine facilities. The facility houses teaching space for about 250 third and fourth year medical students and 500 postgraduate residents, and nine Faculty of Medicine programs as well as the UBC medical school library.
VGH's main cafeteria, Sassafras Cafeteria, is located on the second floor of the Jim Pattison Pavilion. The Jim Pattison Pavilion also has a café at its main entrance called Café Ami.
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