Bridgepoint Health

Name :

Bridgepoint Health

Address  :

1 Bridgepoint Drive

Town  :

Toronto

State  :

Ontario

Country  :

CANADA

Post Code:

M4M 2B5

Phone  :

416 461 8252

Fax  :

416 461 5696

Web URL  :

Available

Email  :

info@bridgepointhealth.ca

Description

About Us
Bridgepoint Health is becoming Canadas leader in understanding treating and managing complex chronic disease the number one health care challenge of the 21st century

Our dedicated care and support team includes over 1400 staff physicians and volunteers who are committed to changing the world for the thousands of inpatients and outpatients with complex chronic disease

Since our inception in 1860 first as a House of Refuge for quotincurables and the indigent poorquot then as a Smallpox Hospital in 1872 followed by an Isolation Hospital to address communicable diseases in 1891 Bridgepoint Health has continued to evolve meeting the most pressing health care issues of the time Today due to the success of modern medicine people are living longer with many chronic diseases known as complex chronic disease As a result there is an urgent need for specialized care research and education in this critical and growing area of health care a need Bridgepoint is here to address

Our evidencebased care model focuses on delivering safe high quality patient care Our dynamic environment celebrates and supports the potential and determination of our patients as well as the skills and expertise of our specialized multidisciplinary care teams

Supported by our affiliation with the University of Toronto Bridgepoint is leading the way in understanding and treating complex chronic disease Most existing research focuses on a single disease and rarely looks at how to treat people with multiple lifelong illnesses The Bridgepoint Collaboratory for Research and Innovation will fill this gap by serving as a hub for researchers from around the world who are finding new ways to prevent and manage complex chronic disease

Our Vision
To be Canadas leader in complex care and complex rehabilitation

Our Mission
We change the world for people living with complex chronic disease and disability by

Providing them with an integrated network of programs and services in
complex care and rehabilitation

Advancing knowledge expertise and care through research teaching and
learning

Engaging our community and health care partners to create a networked system
of support

Our Values
Meaningful Mission
Our work makes a difference We are dedicated to providing compassionate exceptional care and service

Integrity
We are committed to working together with trust and honesty professionalism accountability and acceptance

Investment Growth and Development
We invest in people relationships and our organization to ensure that we provide the best care and service possible

Leadership
We are innovative Our decisionmaking is guided by evidence and expertise

Celebrating Individual Spirit Hopes and Dreams
We are proud of our accomplishments We celebrate and promote individual achievement expression and worth

Social Responsibility
We passionately uphold the rights and needs of the people we serve and of our staff We contribute to building a healthy community

History

1820
Bridgepoints history begins in the late 1700s with the John Scadding receiving a crown grant of 243 acres on Torontos east side

John Scadding was the estate manager and friend of Col John Graves Simcoe the Lieutenant of Upper Canada in 1791 Scadding received a crown grant of 243 acres on the east bank of the Don from the bank of the Don to Scadding Road now Broadview on the east and from the lake north to Second Concession Road now Danforth Avenue

When Simcoe returned to Devon England in 1796 due to ill health Scadding followed managing Simcoes estate In 1818 Scadding returned to his Toronto estate This estate still stands in Toronto as Torontos oldest home and located on the CNE grounds

The third home of Scadding was built north of where Riverdale Hospital now stands

John Scadding died suddenly in 1824 at the age of 70 His widow and three sons were left to manage the farm

On December 30 1856 the City of Toronto paid the Scadding estate 10000 pounds for 119 acres of land to build a jail a house of correction an industrial farm and a House of Refuge

1859
The population rose from a community of almost 4000 people in 1831 to over 44000 in 1861 The city had been incorporated in 1834 and the name changed from York to Toronto the Mohawk word for the region The demographics of the new Toronto were changing greatly too with Canadian born residents becoming the minority and Europeanborn became the majority The population of Toronto swelled from 23000 in 1848 to 30000 by 1850 as a result of mostly Irish Catholic peasant refugees escaping the ongoing famine The new Irish presence was not warmly welcomed in Toronto The Reformer George Brown founding editor of the Globe did not disguise his contempt for the Irish

Irish beggars are to be met everywhere and they are as ignorant and vicious as they are poor They are lazy improvident and unthankful they fill our poorhouses and our prisons and are as brutish in their superstition as Hindus

Many arrived in Toronto under the most horrendous circumstances and Toronto authorities did everything possible that they not remain in the city Larratt Smith a rising young city lawyer wrote his relatives back in England about the Irish immigrants in Toronto

They arrive here to the extent of about 300 to 600 by any steamer The sick are immediately sent to the hospital which had been given up to them entirely and the healthy are fed and allowed to occupy the Immigrant Sheds for 24 hours at the expiration of this time they are obliged to keep moving their rations are stopped and if they are found begging are imprisoned at once Means of conveyance are provided by the Corporation to take them off at once to the country and they are accordingly carried off willy nilly some 16 or 20 miles North South East amp West and quickly put down leaving the country to support them by giving them employmentJohn Gamble advertised for 50 for the Vaughn plank road and hardly were the placards out than the Corporation bundled 500 out and set them downThe hospitals contain over 600 and besides the sick and convalescent we have hundreds of widows and orphans to provide for

From 1841 to 1848 the percentage of Catholics in Toronto rose from 17 to 25 percent The new Irish immigrants were a tougher and more volatile people hardened by the brutal life they experienced in Ireland They were the source of some of Upper Canadas first violent labour unrest rioting on the Welland Canal dig where many were employed at a subsistence wage Some of the first big mob sectarian clashes in Ontario between the Protestant Orange and Catholic Green unfolded in the Niagara region around the canal construction during the 1840s

As Toronto began to gradually nudge its way towards industrialization many of the new Irish immigrants began to settle in the city seeking out unskilled employment Although these types of statistics are not available for the early 1850s those nearing the end of the decade and early 1860s give us a glimpse of Irish urbanization

According to a Toronto Catholic Archdiocese census in the early 1860s fortyfive percent of Torontos Catholics were unskilled labourers The Irish both Catholic and Protestant also represented 673 percent of all arrests in 1858 Irish women in 1860 corresponded to 844 percent of all female arrests despite the fact that Irish composed a little over 25 percent of Torontos total population

Parallel to this we begin to see emerging riots and clashes between Orange Protestant and Green Catholic factions increasingly displace the old Reformer vs Tory brawls Between 1852 and 1858 six major riots between Protestant and Catholic militants unfolded in Toronto The citys Orangedominated constabulary was of little help in quelling these disorders with any semblance of impartiality

The 1850s would witness the first union organizing of unskilled workers as well as increasing militancy from skilled trade unions in the face of increasing mechanization and deskilling in manufacturing In Toronto there were at least fourteen strikes between 18521854 a level of labour militancy not to be seen again until the 1870s The news filtering back to Toronto of riots and revolutions throughout almost all of Europe in 1848 in which monarchies and governments fell must have made local authorities contemplate the efficiency of the Toronto Police

The nature of poverty was also beginning to change Previously impoverished peoples were migratory and seasonal With industrialization they were now becoming permanently settled in increasingly densely populated quarters of the city like Macaulaytown in Torontos St Johns Ward

Not only had the nature of the poor changed but the nature of the wealthy and those in between as well The rise of industrial manufacturing in Toronto created not only a new wealthy class but also a larger propertyowning middleclass eligible to vote The introduction of omnibuses in the late 1840s and later street railways in 1860 segregated Toronto into neighborhoods by income and inevitably by class The perceived threat to Torontos middleclass property owners was gradually being shifted from that of spontaneous riots rebellions and occasional external incursions to a more permanent and geographically fixed source from within the city whose identification gradually began to shift from ethnic to one of class a focus on the threat from dangerous classes of unskilled working poor and destitute unemployed

On December 30 1856 the City of Toronto paid the Scadding estate 10000 pounds for 119 acres of land to build a jail a house of correction an industrial farm and a House of Refuge

On September 14 1859 the cornerstone of the House of Refuge was laid The House of Refuge and the jail were important solutions for the challenges of the time The vision for the House of Refuge was described by the then Chairman of City Council JasJVance as

a House for the relief of all indigent persons incapable of supporting themselves such as the decrepit deformed and invalid poor the helpless orphans poor the maimed the blind and all who from supernatural causes may be incompetent to provide for themselves

Construction on the Don Jail also began in 1859 The building was designed in the Renaissance Revival style where the composition scale and detailing are adopted from Italian Renaissance models It is constructed of brick from Toronto brickyards and stone from quarries along the Niagara Escarpment and in Ohio Ironwork including fine interior decorative elements came mostly from Torontos St Lawrence Foundry The new jail was a showcase of local craftsmanship

The Don Jail was originally patterned on the design of Londons Pentonville Prison which featured a panopticon plan with a centre pavilion and four radiating wings However the original plans were altered to reflect changing needs and new requirements imposed by the provincial government which partly financed the prison After numerous delays setbacks including a fire and changes in contractors the Don Jail was completed in 1864

1860
The House of Refuge was completed by 1860 In reviewing applicants for the job of Keeper of the House the Chairman of City Council JasJ Vance described his challenge in finding the right candidate to the Council

When it is considered that various trades and employmentswill be under his supervision and that he will also need to deal with the lewd the dissolute the indigent the idle the stubborn the vicious maimed and blind the heavenstricken the aged the orphaned the innocent and the idiotic for such reasons it is demed inexpedient for the present to make any recommendation from among the applicants now offering

But a keeper was found and the House served Torontos needs at that time until a far greater need surfaced the smallpox epidemic