St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton (SJHH) has embarked on a remarkable plan to transform our hospital and transform how mental illness and addiction are viewed. Mental illnesses and addictions are no different from any other medical illnesses, such as diseases of the heart or lungs. Our new hospital will be a place where people can get an MRI of their knee, have their depression treated, get help with their diabetes, or learn to manage their alcoholism or schizophrenia. The new West 5th Campus will serve as a shining example of how, through modern, inspired design, we can transform people’s views of mental illness and addiction and make it easier for more people and their families to ask for and receive help when they need it most in an environment of dignity and respect.
The new centre will be a full-fledged academic health sciences centre where research, clinical care and an educational culture are interwoven. Our new hospital will be home to the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences of McMaster University, including an innovative research centre where we will conduct groundbreaking research into the causes and treatment of mental illness and addiction. We will have laboratories and brain imaging facilities to help us learn how to better treat these problems. It will be a busy place filled with the energy that students bring – nursing students, social work students, occupational therapy, medical, and graduate students.
Our new Campus will embody the fundamental values of St. Joseph’s Healthcare, to provide care that is compassionate, where everyone is treated with dignity and respect. We will work in partnership with members of our community who are seeking care, and with their families, to meet their needs and to help them achieve the fullest recovery possible. We will provide an environment that is beautiful, clean and safe, just like the environments we expect when we get care for other kinds of medical problems.
We are entering a new era in our understanding of mental illness and addiction. We are proud and excited about the contribution our new Campus will make in our continuing quest to better understand and treat the millions of people who struggle to live healthy, fulfilling lives while struggling with illnesses of the brain. This is a momentous project for St. Joseph’s Healthcare, for our community in Hamilton, and for people across Ontario and Canada.