New hospital offers modern medicine and feeding.

You couldn’t find a much better description of the new Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre than "state-of-the art."

The medical facility with 375 acute care beds started taking patients February 22nd this year. It is a showpiece of leading edge technology, yet with a humanistic design that removes a lot of "institutional" from the institution

In keeping with the advanced thinking that went into the overall design and equipping of the hospital, the patient food preparation system is a modern one: cook-chill. In an ultra-modern work area, designed by Grantham Winch Partnership of England in collaboration with the hospital’s architect, Tye Farrow of Toronto, credentialed chefs and their staff can prepare up to 1,500 meals a day - and they don’t have to work overtime, weekends or statutory holidays to do it.

The kitchen staff work with state-of-the art cooking equipment such as Blodgett combi ovens with roll-in racks, and a Servolift blast chiller to conserve the food for serving later. When meal time comes, meals are re-heated in Electro Calorique rethermalization carts from France, which make it possible to serve meals hot while maintaining food quality.

With this new system, the hospital only needs five full time staff, including two chefs in the cafeteria, to prepare meals. In the two hospitals that were replaced by the new one, the task requires eight staff to produce about the same number of meals. The cook-chill system allows production staff to prepare and store seven days worth of food in five days, or in four days when a long weekend is coming up. And they do it all during regular working hours. This leads to significant savings on the food production staff payroll. Also, cold plating (putting together chilled food items as meals on trays for later heating and serving) allows for a more efficient scheduling of staff, and therefore has cut down on the number of staff needed to put together meal trays and deliver them to patients, as well.

At hospitals where the workers are unionized, as is the case in Thunder Bay, talk of staff reductions can spark labour unrest, with people worried about lay-offs and merging of positions. However, management avoided this problem through a policy of better communication with its workers. This began a couple of years before the new hospital opened, says Cathy Paroschy Harris, who took over as director, nutrition and food services at the new hospital about four months after its opening. No one was laid off and reductions were accomplished by attrition. When someone left one of the old hospitals, their replacement was hired on a temporary basis. "When I started here in May, I didn’t have any outstanding grievances (to deal with)," says Paroschy Harris, adding that this was something new for her.

In all, the Nutrition and Food Service Department is staffed with a director, five foodservice supervisors, seven registered dietitians and 57 support staff dedicated to patient meal service, dishwashing, the cafeteria and catering.

The dietitians are consulted on menus for patients with special needs in the oncology, renal, maternity, pediatrics, cardiology and psychiatry units. When the new medical school opens at Lakehead University next year the dietitians will help educate fledgling doctors about nutrition and the role of dietitians in a hospital. The dietitians also mentor dietetic graduates from university who do a one-year internship at the hospital. In Thunder Bay, the program focuses on the needs of First Nations people and other northerners. In a way, this makes Burlington-based Sodexho Canada the appropriate management firm for foodservice at the hospital. This company has been awarded gold level certification in the Progressive Aboriginal Relations program of the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business.

While Sodexho provides management services, all nutrition and foodservice staff are employees of the hospital. Foodservice director Paroschy Harris is the only Sodexho employee there. Sodexho previously had the management contract for the two Thunder Bay hospitals that the new regional centre replaced, McKellar General Hospital and Port Arthur General Hospital.

Reusable equipment from these two hospitals has been moved to the new site or is being sold or donated to other parties. McKellar remains partially open as a long-term care facility, managed by Sarnia-based S&R Nursing Homes.

The new hospital is integrated into a 70-acre landscaped site that still remains home to local wildlife. The building was designed to reflect life in Northern Ontario. The floor of the lofted main corridor is a mosaic representing the changing seasons. Wood and natural light have been combined to provide bright and attractive surroundings for patients, visitors and staff. The corridor has faux fireplaces and comfortable sofas in the sitting areas for patients and visitors. At the end of the corridor is a grand staircase leading down to the cafeteria, a three-story atrium with windows giving a view of the many ponds on the hospital grounds. The design of this area was also a collaboration of Grantham Winch Partnership and architect Farrow.

The facility has 340 seats but can accommodate receptions of up to 840 guests standing. It rings up average sales of $4,000 a day, serving 1,700 customers. It offers freshly prepared food that includes made-to-order, grilled and hot specialty sandwiches, and there is also a salad bar. Equipment new to the cafeteria includes pizza and combi ovens, induction cookers, a charbroiler and a cappuccino maker.

The cafeteria is open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and there is food available in vending machines for staff or visitors who want to eat outside of cafeteria hours. Also, a Robin’s Donuts unit will be coming to the hospital. For patients who get peckish outside of meal hours, there is food kept on the wards.

Besides hospital staff, the cafeteria will also be feeding medical visitors from outside the Thunder Bay area. The hospital’s highly advanced medical technology includes two linear accelerators for Cancer Care, of which there are only six in the world, and Thunder Bay will become a training centre for this equipment.

"The new Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre is a beautiful and technologically advanced health care facility," says Paroschy Harris. "With this new building now in place the region of Northwestern Ontario can look forward to the highest quality of care available."

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