Vancouver centre for spinal cord injury care opens
Pamela Fayerman, Vancouver Sun
Published: Wednesday, November 19, 2008
VANCOUVER - When what's been described as the world's largest, most technologically advanced and integrated facility for spinal cord injury care and research opened Tuesday, it lacked any signage about wheelchair accessibility.
That's because the Blusson Spinal Cord Centre, a $45-million building on the Vancouver General Hospital campus, is so disability friendly that there's no need for such signs.
Spinal surgeon Dr. Marcel Dvorak said the centre will get up to 16,000 patient visits a year and one-stop health care means those with paralysis will no longer have to see doctors and other health providers at multiple locations throughout the province.
"This whole thing would have never happened were it not for Rick," he said, referring to Rick Hansen, who originally conceived the idea of the facility.
Hansen's foundation got a $10 million donation from philanthropic diamond mine discoverer/geologist Stu Blusson, a few years ago.
Hansen then turned $8.75 million of it into building the six-storey facility that will also be home to the International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries, with its 400 researchers.
Federal partners (Canada Foundation for Innovation) and the provincial government each contributed nearly $13 million, the University of B.C. gave $8.15 million and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute gave $2.3 million.
"The beauty and uniqueness of the place is that patients will come here very early after their injury and they will get help with such things as urological matters, skin and wound care, pain management, — health and rehabilitation," said Dvorak.
"Scientists, surgeons, bio-engineers and all kinds of others from disparate groups will now work here side by side and we will ask better questions and get better answers because of that," he added in an interview.
Premier Gordon Campbell told the large crowd at the opening ceremony that the facility would "bring us closer to finding a cure for spinal cord injuries."
In the audience were Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan, a paraplegic, and former mayor Mike Harcourt, who might have become one were it not for his prompt care after an accident six years ago.
Hansen, whose foundation programs will be on the top floor, said the facility is the culmination of a goal he established long ago to see the creation of a place that would foster "brilliance and possibilities" for patients who might one day be able to "walk away from an injury."
Unveiled during the ceremony was a massive painting created by quadriplegic artist Robb Dunfield, who was commissioned to create a work for the entrance.
Dunfield spent three years mouth-painting on 12 adjoining panels. The 1.8-by-2.4-metre painting is believed to be the largest ever created by mouth in the world. Dunfield said it was such a daunting challenge that he realized that if wheeling up the Great Wall of China was Hansen's greatest challenge during his Man In Motion Tour "this was my Mount Everest."
The painting, of his twin daughters at the beach, represents the ideal that "children are our hope and the future is an unfinished canvas."
The world’s largest, most technologically advanced and integrated facility for spinal cord injury care and research, the Blusson Spinal Cord Centre, opened Tuesday. The $45 million building is on the Vancouver General Hospital campus.
The new Spinal Cord Injury Centre at VGH uses color and natural light along the multi-level walkway.
Premier Gordon Campbell is saved by a wheelie bar as he tries out designer Jaimie Borisoff's (left) new lift equipped chair. The premier was touring the new Spinal Cord Injury Centre at VGH after the opening ceremonies.
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