St. Joseph’s Urgent Care open ‘Smilezones’

St. Joseph’s Urgent Care Centre on King Street East has remodelled five of its waiting rooms. The new waiting rooms are now called Smilezones.

St. Joseph’s Healthcare says its paediatric waiting room, care bays, and other specialized rooms, have been transformed into interactive areas with murals that feature many images including places in Hamilton and its sports teams. St. Joe’s says the murals and wonderful colours will make a difference to the 15,000 young patients it sees every year.

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Smilezone Foundation founder and construction professional Scott Bachly says the inspiration for the concept came from hospitals in the U.S. and he wanted to bring it to Canada.

Bachly says the foundation has built more than 300 Smilezones in Ontario alone. They have Smilezones in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba and have plans to bring them to Newfoundland later this month.

A donation from the Toronto Rock made this happen and the lacrosse team says they have contributed to the cause before. Toronto Rock captain Challen Rogers says, “Since moving to Hamilton, we’ve wanted to be in this community, whether Smilezones or school visits, showing the people of Hamilton that Toronto Rock are here to build up the community.”

Both the team and the foundation have not revealed how much was donated, but Bachly says the average cost to construct a Smilezone is $100,000.

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St. Joseph’s VP of Clinical Programs Rick Badzioch says they were pleased when the Rock and Smilezone approached them with the offer to build the vibrant setting.

Badzioch says, “The King Street site here it serves a very very large community in the east end of Hamilton, Stoney Creek, Grimsby area, so we took the offer and applied it to where we thought would be the best and where we could have the greatest results.”

The Smilezone Foundation says they’ve been approached by other local donors to build more sites.