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Ambulatory care at Hotel Dieu Hospital

Ambulatory care at Hotel Dieu Hospital (HDH) is specialized care that may include a scheduled visit to one or more hospital clinics, diagnostic or procedural areas. In some cases, a single health care professional, for example a surgeon or internal medicine physician, may see patients in a traditional clinic setting. Increasingly, patients and families will receive care in a team-based inter-disciplinary and/or inter-professional program, such as our pre-surgical screening, diabetes, breast assessment, bariatric, chronic pain or cardiac rehabilitation programs. Ambulatory care at HDH includes care for patients with urgent and less critical emergency problems at our Urgent Care Centre.

Hotel Dieu Hospital has a very active ambulatory surgery program where most patients return home the same day. We also have a short-stay facility in the form of a satellite post-anesthetic care unit that supports patients who need extended time for pain control and rehabilitation therapy. This facility is key to our innovative fast-track total hip and knee arthroplasty program.

Hotel Dieu Hospital is a faith-based, academic hospital where research and learning take place every day and where we are committed to partnership with patients and families. We actively engage in implementing innovative models of care that support patient care, as well as regional and academic health care needs. Affiliated with Queen’s University, we serve as a major teaching location for learners from across the Faculty of Health Sciences, including medical, nursing and allied health learners. And research at Hotel Dieu Hospital contributes to the growing field of knowledge about health care and ambulatory care in Canada and beyond.

Ambulatory care at Hotel Dieu Hospital is part of an integrated, cost-effective system of health care in Southeastern Ontario.

Hotel Dieu Hospital was established by the Religious Hospitallers of Saint Joseph (RHSJ), a congregation of religious women founded in France by Jerome le Royer de la Dauversiere in 1636. In the mid-1600s, the Sisters arrived in Canada to help build a hospital in Montreal, and they were called upon to continue their healing mission by opening the first public hospital in the Kingston area in 1845.

They originally took up residence on the corner of Brock and Sydenham Streets, caring for the immigrants who flooded the region and for hundreds of orphans whose immigrant parents died from disease and starvation.

In 1892, the Sisters moved to Hotel Dieu’s current site, increasing patient capacity from 40 to 150 people. A chapel was built in 1895 and a convent in 1897. A School of Nursing started in 1912, with the first class graduating in 1914. More buildings and services were added over the following years with the Centenary, Brock and Johnson wings, and subsequently the Jeanne Mance building in 1984.

While the mission of the Sisters remains the touchstone of all we do at Hotel Dieu Hospital, formal sponsorship of the hospital now rests with Catholic Health International, whose mission is to ensure the presence of Catholic values in its member Corporations.

*Photos courtesy of Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph, St. Joseph Archives. 1) St. Joseph's Ward, 1900. 2) Monastery (residence of Sisters) 1898-1959.

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