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28 economist sunsuntribune saturday april 26 2003 all services up and running at york central hospital thanks to a tremendous effort from our staff and physicians we have now reopened all services at york central hospital our first priority has been to address the urgent needs of cancer patients and others with serious illnesses over the coming weeks we also hope to reschedule appointments that were cancelled during our recent closure infection control measures have been highly successful thanks to the strict infection control measures taken by our staff and physicians to contain and control sars in our hospital environment the provincial operations centre in concert with york region public health approved the reopening of our hospital on saturdayapril 8 2003 our patients and community can now feel safe and confident in returning to our hospital environment patients and families pleased as visitor restrictions are relaxed in light of our new status we have eased our visitor restrictions to enable each patient to have one visitor a day with greater flexibility shown for palliative care and seriously ill patients we continue to ask all visitors to be screened for sars related symptoms have their temperatures taken wear a protective mask and wash their hands with disinfectant to safeguard the health of our patients as well as the health of the staff and physicians who care for them reopening a tribute to the efforts of our staff and physicians over the past couple of weeks the hospital has hosted a number of inspection teams from the sars provincial operations centre and york region public health each time the teams have been extremely impressed with the prompt arid comprehensive way in which our staff and physicians have diligently implemented infection control and containment strategies while continuing to provide quality care for patients in hospital we applaud the long hours of hard work expertise and commitment of our staff and physicians in their efforts to once again fully serve our community with confidence and pride i the continued patience and support of our community is appreciated with over 65000 visits to our emergency department this past year we know how much our growing community depends on having quality health care close to home since the reopening of our hospital many of the patients and families returning have expressed their thanks and support to our hospitalstaff and physicians the communitys understanding and patience with our continued infection control precautions is appreciated york central hospital welcomes back volunteers just in time to for national volunteer appreciation week york central hospital is happy to welcome back the gradual return of volunteers who provide assistance to our patients and staff in keeping with our precautionary visitor restrictions volunteers will initially resume their duties in nonpatient care areas only at some time in the future when visitor precautions are relaxed for gta hospitals our volunteers will be able to assist in patient care areas meanwhile we extend our thanks to all volunteers for their yearround support of our hospital york central w hospital for better health care for better health iilmulj luui