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High-tech upgrades set Collingwood's hospital apart in the world
CGMH will be the first hospital in the world to provide self-sterilizing rooms.
Jan 27, 2019 12:00 PM By: Erika Engel
1 / 1 Jesse Dees, development officer for the Collingwood General and Marine Hospital Foundation, stands in one of the patient rooms at the hospital that will be renovated next year. Erika Engel/CollingwoodToday
The stereotype of a dreary, dull, outdated hospital room is going out the window at Collingwood General and Marine Hospital (CGMH), thanks to more than $1 million in donations over Christmas.
The Collingwood General and Marine Hospital foundation announced its Tree of Life Campaign last fall, and the goal was a facelift for 58 patient rooms.
But it wasn't just the aesthetics that were due for an upgrade. The plan was to include germ-killing technology to bring the hospital rooms up to the highest standard of infection control.
"Every patient deserves a safe, clean & comfortable room for treatment & recuperation in hospital," said Jory Pritchard-Kerr, executive director of the hospital foundation, in a press release. "The deteriorating state of these rooms is not conducive to good patient care or infection control. We are so grateful that our community recognized this important need and invested in our vision."
According to the press release from the CGMH foundation, a new hospital is eight to 10 years away, and in the meantime, the hospital will care for more than 50,000 inpatients.
The renovation plans include repairing the walls and repainting every room; covering the bottom four feet of each room's wall with damage-resistant cladding; new entertainment/communication/educational units; ultraviolet lights in each patient washroom to kill microorganisms while the washroom is not in use; copper infused toilet seats to rapidly kill bacteria, yeast, and viruses; and, finally, touchless sinks with ozonated water.
The foundation will also purchase a Mobile Room Sterilizer unit, which is a portable, lightweight, remote-controlled UV light set that can be put in a room and used to sterilize all surfaces.
According to the press release, Class1 Inc. approached CGMH to become a demonstration site for further infection-control technology. That means CGMH will be the first hospital in the world to provide self-sterilizing rooms.
Five private inpatient rooms will be equipped with UVC lights to sterilize the room with UV light; copper infused wall panels and high-touch surfaces like bed rails, tables, door handles, and push plates; and copper-infused shelving units in patient washrooms to further limit the spread of microorganisms.
All of the public washrooms in the hospital will also be equipped with ozonated sinks and copper-infused toilet seats.
While the Inpatient Room Renovation Campaign has been successful so far, the foundation is extending the call for donations to 2019 with a goal of raising $200,000 more to cover the costs of the infection-control technology.
Read more about the room upgrades on CollingwoodToday here.
About the Author: Erika Engel
Erika regularly covers all things news in Collingwood as a reporter, photographer and community editor.
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