During the spring of 1875, an eleven-room house was rented for $320 a year by a Toronto women's bible study group led by Elizabeth McMaster. They set up six iron cots and "declared open a hospital 'for the admission and treatment of all sick children.'" Their first patient, a scalding victim named Maggie, came in on April 3. Forty-four patients were admitted to the Hospital in its first year of operation and sixty-seven others were treated in outpatient clinics. In 1876 the hospital moved to larger facilities. In 1891 the hospital moved from rented premises to a building constructed for it at College and Elizabeth streets where it would remain for sixty years. This old building, known as the Victoria Hospital for Sick Children, is now the Toronto area headquarters of Canadian Blood Services. In 1951 the hospital moved to its present University Avenue location, on the grounds where Canadian-born movie star Mary Pickford's childhood home once stood. In 1972, the hospital was equipped with a rooftop helipad. Today, it is one of two downtown Toronto hospitals with a helipad and one of three in Toronto. SickKids Hospital underwent a major expansion in 1993 with the construction of a glass-roofed atrium on the east side of the main building. In late 2008, the hospital underwent a major renovation in the emergency wing.
Funding
Medical treatments at the hospital are covered by publicly funded health insurance, as is the case in most other Canadian hospitals. Philanthropy is a critical source of funding for SickKids Hospital that is separate and distinct from government and granting agencies. In 2006/07, financial support from SickKids Foundation to the hospital totalled $72.1 million. The support went towards infrastructure and support for physicians, researchers and scientists who compete for national and international research grants. Next to government, SickKids Foundation is the largest funding agency in child health research, education and care in Canada. The Foundation maintains a fund, called the Herbie Fund, for patients not covered by Canadian health insurance. The fund was established in 1979 to provide for the treatment of Herbie Quiñones, a seven-month-old patient from Brooklyn, New York.
Contributions to medicine
The hospital was an early leader in the fields of food safety and nutrition. In 1908 a pasteurization facility for milk was established at the hospital, the first in Toronto, and 30 years before milk pasteurization became mandatory. Researchers at the hospital invented the infant cereal, Pablum. The research that led to the discovery of insulin took place nearby at the University of Toronto and was soon applied at the hospital. Doctor Frederick Banting, one of the researchers, had served his internship at SickKids Hospital and went on to become an attending physician there. In 1963 William Thornton Mustard developed the Mustard surgical procedure used to help correct heart problems in blue baby syndrome. In 1989, a team of researchers at the hospital discovered the gene responsible for cystic fibrosis.
Controversy
The hospital housed the Motherisk Drug Testing Laboratory. At the request of various child protection agencies 16,000 hair samples were tested from 2005 to 2015. Former Ontario Appeal Court judge Susan Lang reviewed Motherisk Drug Testing Laboratory and determined that they were not qualified to do forensic testing. Susan Lang also stated "That SickKids failed to exercise meaningful oversight over MDTL's work must be considered in the context of the hospital's experience with Dr. Charles Smith". The 2008 Goudge Report found Dr. Charles Smith, whose forensic testimony led to wrongful convictions in the deaths of children, was also not qualified to do forensic testing.
