London Health Sciences Centre is a hospital network in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

and is collectively one of

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

's largest acute-care

teaching hospital A teaching hospital is a hospital or medical centre that provides medical education and training to future and current health professionals. Teaching hospitals are almost always affiliated with one or more universities and are often co-located ...

s. It was formed in 1995 as a result of the merger of

University Hospital A university hospital is an institution which combines the services of a hospital with the education of medical students and with medical research. These hospitals are typically affiliated with a medical school or university. The following is a l ...

and Victoria Hospital. In affiliation with the

Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry The Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry is the combined medical school and dental school of the University of Western Ontario, one of 17 medical schools in Canada and one of six in Ontario. History The medical school at the University of ...

at the

University of Western Ontario The University of Western Ontario (UWO), also known as Western University or Western, is a Public university, public research university in London, Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land, surrounded by resident ...

, it trains more than 1,800 medical and care professionals annually. It operates two hospital facilities,

and Victoria Hospital which includes the

Children's Hospital at London Health Sciences Centre The Children's Hospital at London Health Sciences Centre is a children's hospital in London, Ontario, Canada that provides paediatric care for patients from the London metropolitan area and the rest of Southwestern Ontario. A separate Children's ...

History

Donald Alexander Macdonald Donald Alexander Macdonald (February 17, 1817 – June 10, 1896) was a Canadian politician. Born in 1817 in St. Raphael's, Upper Canada, Donald Alexander Macdonald studied at St Raphael's College under the first Catholic Bishop of Ontar ...

Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario The lieutenant governor of Ontario (, in French: ''Lieutenant-gouverneur'' (if male) or ''Lieutenante-gouverneure'' (if female) ''de l'Ontario'') is the viceregal representative in Ontario of the , who operates distinctly within the province but ...

, officially opened the London General Hospital in 1875. Its legacy as a teaching hospital dates from 1882, when the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Western Ontario was opened at St. James Street. In 1887, there were 60 students, too many for the original site, and a new building was constructed at Waterloo and York Streets. The biggest of changes came in 1921 after a new building was opened at South and Waterloo Street and in 1965 when the faculty moved to the university campus. The London General Training School for Nurses opened in 1883 with total of three students. It was the third nursing school opened in Canada. All students were living in the hospital until the Nurses' Residence was opened in 1905. In 1975, the nursing program was transferred to

Fanshawe College Fanshawe College of Applied Arts and Technology, commonly shortened to Fanshawe College, is a public college in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. One of the largest colleges in Canada, it has campuses in London, Simcoe, St. Thomas and Woodstock ...

. Today, with the amalgamation of both the University Hospital campus and Victoria Hospital campus within London Health Sciences Centre, both are educational sites for nursing students from both Fanshawe College and the University of Western Ontario, in addition to public-health, dentistry and medicine students at the

and the broader University of Western Ontario Faculty of Graduate Studies. In January 2021, President and CEO Paul Woods apologized for travelling to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

five times since the start of the

COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario The COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario is an ongoing viral pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a novel infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in C ...

– including over the Christmas holidays – contrary to public health advice against non-essential international travel. Woods is a Canadian citizen and lives in London by himself, while his family lives in

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

. All of his trips were approved by the London Health Sciences Centre Board. In November 2020, during a COVID-19 outbreak at University Hospital which killed 26 people, Woods had sent a memo to health workers under him admonishing them for not strictly following public health advice and stating that they should be held to a higher standard. Upon ''

CBC News CBC News is a division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on the corporation's English-language operations, namely CBC Television, CBC Radio, CBC News Network, and CBC.ca. ...

'' breaking the story, Woods issued a statement saying that he would respect public health advice on non-essential travel in the future. On January 11, Woods was fired as CEO, and the board retracted earlier statements that it had approved Woods's trips.

References

External links

* Hospitals established in 1995 Hospital networks in Canada 1995 establishments in Ontario Hospitals in London, Ontario Companies based in London, Ontario {{Canada-hospital-stub