Lois Hole Hospital for Women Opens in 2010
health care, hospitals, women's health,
It is just what the doctor ordered. That is, 112 private beds and state-of-the-art surgical suites dedicated to women’s health.
The Lois Hole Hospital for Women will open in 2010 on the campus of Royal Alexandra Hospital. It will occupy five of the seven stories in the new $215 million Robbins Pavilion patient tower that has been added to Royal Alexandra.
The tower will also include a rooftop Ted & Lois Hole Healing Garden that will be accessible to patients, staff and visitors.
“We have long offered women’s services here at Royal Alexandra, but we have pretty much outgrown our current space,” says Selikke Janes-Kelley, director of women’s health for Royal Alexandra Hospital and the Lois Hole Hospital for Women. “Now we will be able to consolidate the majority of women’s health programs and services that are located throughout the Royal Alexandra Hospital property – all into one brand new building.”
The ground floor of the new tower will be used as an ambulatory clinic, while inpatient care for Lois Hole Hospital will be featured on the second through fifth floors. Meanwhile, the C.K. Hui Heart Centre will occupy the first floor of the tower, while the sixth floor has yet to be assigned.
This new women’s hospital for Edmonton and the surrounding region will specialize in gynaecology, ante partum, post partum, labour and delivery. It also will provide gynaecologic oncology treatment related to ovarian, uterine and cervical cancers, but not breast cancer.
There also will be teaching and research space for the University of Alberta’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry.
“So, besides new and expanded space for treatment and services, the hospital will encourage the discoveries of new technology by supporting increased research, education and innovation,” Janes-Kelley says. “Helping to identify new and better ways of treating women will be what this new hospital strives for.”
The hospital is named after the Honourable Dr. Lois E. Hole, former lieutenant governor of Alberta from 2000-05 who passed away in 2005.
“This will be a medical centre where, when women walk through the doors, they’ll know they are entering a special place – a place designed with their unique needs in mind,” Janes-Kelley says.
Alberta Health Services oversees Royal Alexandra Hospital and the Lois Hole Hospital for Women, and AHS also now has Rutherford Health Centre under its medical umbrella. Rutherford Health Centre opened in January 2009 to better serve residents of Rutherford and southwest Edmonton.
In addition, AHS is scheduled in 2009 to open a Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute on the U of A campus. It will be a centre for complete cardiac disease care and will serve all of western Canada and beyond.
Story by Kevin Litwin
