July 31, 2003
Contact:
James Bullbrook
Restructuring Communications
519-685-8500, ext. 75532
London Health Sciences Centre Opens New Operating Rooms at University Campus
(London, Ontario) - Nine new state-of-the-art operating rooms opened at London Health Sciences Centre's University Campus today, including one dedicated to research utilizing robotic technology with fully-operative radiology support. Construction took 18 months to complete, at a cost of $5.8 million. An additional $2 million was invested in new equipment.
"Today's opening is a further demonstration of the incredible commitment of our community, our staff and our physicians to providing the finest health care in the world right here in London," said Tony Dagnone, President and CEO of London Health Sciences Centre. "Because of generous donors such as Richard M. Ivey and Beryl Ivey, The Richard Ivey Foundation, the White Family and the Blackburn Group Incorporated, and many others like them, patients will benefit from these new state-of-the-art facilities for years to come."
Features of the new facilities include:
- 1 minimally invasive surgery suite equipped with the Zeus™, Da Vinci™, Socrates™ and Aesop™ surgical robotic platforms to be used for patient care and research.
- 1 new transplant room with flat-screen video technology that will enable minimally invasive surgery.
- 2 new orthopaedic rooms featuring Laminar flow technology, which reduces the risk of infection.
- 1 new orthopaedic room dedicated to sports medicine and featuring state-of-the-art video technology.
- 3 new neurosurgery rooms, including one planned for use with angiography and radiology and one that is copper-shielded from radio frequency interference to permit deep-brain stimulation surgery for patients with epilepsy and other neurological disorders.
- And one for general use, including urology.
Mr. Dagnone stated, "Today's opening marks the completion of the first phase of operating room construction at University Campus, bringing the current total of operating rooms to 16. Several existing operating rooms will now undergo extensive renovation into new recovery rooms. This phase is expected to be completed by next summer, at which time city-wide cardiac surgery will consolidate at University Campus and general surgery will transfer from St. Joseph's Health Care London. At that time, the 16 operating rooms at University Campus will treat nearly ten thousand patients a year, a 25 percent increase over today."
