Montreal Children's Hospital prepares for move to MUHC Glen site

On Sunday, the Montreal Children's Hospital will join the Royal Victoria at the new MUHC Glen site.

In the months leading up to the move, staff have run through numerous simulations to help them prepare for and anticipate any issues. 

For example, today at the pediatric intensive care unit, doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists run through a simulation of a four-month-old with heart failure.

The baby needs to be moved along with the heart and lung machine that is keeping her alive.

Although they are using a dummy, the staff treat her as if she's a real patient. There is a machine monitoring her vital signs and a physician is standing by to call out different scenarios, testing how the team reacts.

A baby with heart failure is one of the most complicated patients to move.

If the stretcher is bumped or turns a corner too quickly as it is wheeled down the hallway and out to the ambulance, it can disrupt the machine which helps pump blood through the body and keep it oxygenated.

"Today it worked because our patient is very small," said emergency medicine physician Dr. Tanya Di Genova, who oversaw the run-through. 

"If our patient is bigger and can't support the stretcher and can't support the equipment, those are the things we have to discuss and measure and make sure everything fits on the stretcher and into the ambulance." 

Getting used to a new space 

On move day, each child in the ICU will have a respiratory therapist, nurse and physician by their side.

Medical problems range from children recovering from heart surgery, fighting cancer as well as children with chronic health issues who are on a respirator.

Each child will take about 30 minutes to move, but the goal is to maintain the same level of care they'd get in the hospital.

The run-throughs allow staff to try out different "what-if" scenarios and help staff get a feel for how everything works in the new hospital. 

They need to find out things like how they're going to set up the ventilator, or how the trauma elevator works, says Dr. Saleem Razack, the head of the pediatric ICU.

With the individual rooms, calling for help isn't as simple as calling out for backup.

The respiratory therapists need to be prepared to react to any emergency in the hospital. They're expected to know the hospital like the back of their hands.

"We've been doing treasure hunts and amazing race and all kinds of stuff just to get people comfortable in their environment where it's fun and they get a little higher stress level where you're racing just to get comfortable in the environment," says Marisa Leone, assistant manager of respiratory therapy at the Children's Hospital.

Hospital ramp down

This week, the Children's Hospital is closing some operating rooms and have rescheduled elective surgeries.

As the move date inches closer, the roster of patients is constantly updated so staff know exactly what equipment is needed.

Dr. Louis Beaumier is a neonatologist at the Children's but helped with the Royal Victoria Hospital move a few weeks ago.

The move went smoothly and even when a technical issue came up with a piece of equipment, there was time built in that allowed them to fix it quickly.

He says the same flexibility will be built into this move when they move babies from the neo-natal intensive care unit.

And while they've spent months planning this move, they've spent just as much time preparing the new hospital to make sure the children and their families are comfortable from the moment they arrive.