As new Shriners Hospital gets set to open, young patient expresses his gratitude (2024)

As he pushed himself in his wheelchair on the fourth floor of the new Shriners Hospital for Children, seven-year-old Kaleb-Wolf De Melo Torres couldn’t be any happier. He marvelled at all the shiny new toys in a spacious playroom,stopping to examine aplastic construction truck and turning over every size of building block in his tiny hands.

“This is the best place of all,” Kaleb-Wolf said on Thursday, just before a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by all the notables: Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard, Health Minister Gaétan Barrette and Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre.

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But let us first get back to the star of this story, Kaleb-Wolf, who was born with broken legs —the result of osteogenesis imperfecta, or brittle-bone disease.

At seven days old, Kaleb-Wolf underwent his first operation at the old location of the Shriners Hospital on Cedar Ave. Since then, he’s undergone eight other surgeries to install telescopic metal rods in his limbs —rods that were inventedby a pioneering team at the Montreal Shriners facility.

Every four months, he must return to the hospital to be hooked up to an IV machine and infused with a medication to strengthen his bones. As he grows older and his arms and legs grow longer, he will likely have to undergo more operations to install new rods. And there’s always the risk that he might develop scoliosis, a painful curvature of the spine.

“The surgeries, the rods,” Kaleb-Wolf said. “They’ve helped me a lot.”

His mother, Marie-Hélène Bédard, didn’t fuss over her son as he spoke to reporters. Her boy was wearing a tie, and he shook the hands of the assembled reporters one by one,taking his role seriously as a goodwill ambassador of the hospital.

At a distance, his mother smiled, clasping her hands to her mouth.

“Even though this is a much bigger hospital than the old one, they’ve kept the spirit,” Bédard said. “All the effort that they’ve put into this new building,it’s amazing.”

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The $127-million hospital, which will be open to patients officially on Oct. 5, will house Canada’s first pediatric medical simulation centre to train doctors and nurses. The building is almost triple the size of the old hospital, which was founded in 1925 and had run out of space on Mount-Royal.

“This is our best hospital,” said Gino Beretta, chairman of the Canadian board of governors of the Shriners Hospitals for Children. “I’m proud to say that.”

The Montreal facility is the only Shriners hospital in Canada; there are 20 in the United States and one in Mexico City. The Montreal hospital will treat children with orthopedic disorders from across Canada, the northeast U.S. and even from around the world.

But in the early 2000s, the prospects were dim that the Montreal Shriners Hospital would even survive, much less be rebuilt. That’s because senior Shriners seriously considered an offer by the London Health Sciences Centre in Ontario to move the hospital to their city.

In 2005, Quebec Premier Jean Charest and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty attended a Shriners conference in Baltimore, turning what would have been a routine convention into something resembling an election campaign as each leader sought to persuade the delegates to pick London over Montreal or vice versa. Philippe Couillard, who was then health minister, attended the convention as well, lobbying delegates and pledging $5 million toward the cost of a new Shriners facility next to the future superhospital of the McGill University Health Centre.

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In the end, the Shriners voted 51 per cent to keep their Canadian hospital in Montreal; a two-thirds majority was needed to move the hospital. On Thursday, Couillard made a point of touring the new Shriners hospital, stopping to shake the hands of Shriners from across North America.

“With its super-specialized pediatric orthopedic care and services, the Shriners Hospital for Children is a full-fledged partner in our health network and an undeniable asset to Montreal’s scientific influence,” Couillard said in a speech afterward.

The Shriners facility, connected to the new Montreal Children’s Hospital in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, will house four operating rooms – double the number at its previous address – allowing it to double the number of operations to 2,000 a year, said Lise Lacroix, the OR nurse manager.

The cost of the construction and new equipment – including a 3-D X-ray machine that delivers the lowest possible dosage of radiation of any Shriners hospital – was raised through private donations.

“We’ve really upped our game here,” said Dr. Jean Ouellet, a clinical director of the Montreal hospital.

Back in the playroom on the fourth floor, Kaleb-Wolf helped put the toys back in their drawers after most of the reporters left for the ribbon-cutting.

“It’s really great,” he said, looking around the new hospital. “Thank you for coming.”

aderfel@montrealgazette.com

twitter.com/Aaron_Derfel

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