The Wellesley Central Hospital

In 1998 the Wellesley Central Hospital in southeast Toronto closed its doors, ending an "87-year tradition of excellence and caring". While the operations of the hospital had come to an end , as directed by the Ontario Health Services Restructuring Commission , the spirit that had given it definition had not. A handful of former Board members and community activists remained determined to safeguard the legacy of the hospital, and to envision and act on a future that would bring it to life.

(For a complete history of the Wellesley Hospital, see Survival Strategies: the Life, Death and Renaissance of a Canadian Teaching Hospital [1], edited by David Goyette, Dennis William Magill, and Jeff Davis, Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press Inc., 2006. 501p.)

Wellesley Central Health Corporation (WCHC)

The small group of former hospital Board members and community activists formed the Wellesley Central Health Corporation (WCHC). The WCHC abandoned the goal of delivering health services.

Over the next few years (and after some considerable debate) the WCHC developed plans to create an enduring neighbourhood legacy for the former hospital. With substantial community consultation, a plan was approved to provide a number of neighborhood uses to the land that had housed the Wellesley Central Hospital. Today the land houses a long-term care facility, a not-for-profit supportive housing complex, for-profit housing, and a public park.

Over the years that the WCHC focused on site redevelopment, it also began to put into place the leadership that would lay the foundation of its future as a leader in the urban health field. In 2003 Rick Blickstead, WCHC's Chief Executive Officer described the organization's goal "to be a leader and catalyst for enhancing the wellness and health of people in southeast Toronto and other communities".

Moving forward on this vision, WCHC developed a community-based research (CBR) strategy and began funding CBR projects; at the same time the organization mounted a series of capacity building workshops community organizations in the Toronto area. Over the past three years the organization evolved further, becoming actively involved in policy analysis, research, knowledge exchange as well as capacity building.

The Wellesley Institute

In 2006 the Wellesley Central Health Corporation changed its name to the Wellesley Institute, reflecting its evolution from developer to "think-tank". Today, the Wellesley Institute is a unique hybrid: a non-profit and non-partisan research and policy institute that also provides training and capacity building, all focused on finding solutions to problems of urban health.