Calgary’s inner city community got a healthy shot in the arm last week with the opening of the new Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre in the Beltline.

Located between 12th Ave. and Fourth St. S.W., the centre will provide a variety of community-based programs and clinics that will serve those who work, visit and live downtown.

The Calgary Health Region’s brand new 300,000 sq. ft., eight-storey facility will take over where the previous downtown health centre on Eighth and Eighth left off when it closed its doors at the end of March.

“We’re very excited about the opportunities this new health centre will provide to the downtown and inner city population,” said Thelma Inkson, vice president of the Calgary Health Region (CHR). “By consolidating a number of services into this location, health care providers are better able to work together to diagnose and treat patients and better serve the needs of the community.”

Urgent care is one of the first services to open at the centre, which will be available 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Urgent care is for adults and children experiencing unexpected health concerns that are non-life threatening but require same day treatment, including fractures and sprains, lacerations, asthma, mental health crisis, dehydration, pain and infection.

“Urgent care at the Eighth and Eighth Health Centre was the first of its kind in all of Canada,” said Rob Abernethy, vice president and associate chief medical officer for the CHR. “We are building on its success with the opening of the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre and we’re very excited because this is in direct response to the health care needs of a growing, vibrant downtown.”

Other services offered at the centre include diagnostic imaging services like x-ray, CT scans and MRI scans, Calgary Laboratory Services, the Southern Alberta HIV Clinic and Safeworks, the City of Calgary’s program to fight sexually transmitted disease. Additional services will continue to open throughout the year.

Construction will be split up into four phases and will include the opening of several services such as a mental health mobile response team, a sexual assault response team, a dental clinic and an adult aboriginal mental health program.

The Alberta government provided $82 million in 2005 to fund the construction of the centre and is built on the site of the Colonel Belcher Hospital which opened on June 7, 1919 to care for veterans of World War I.

The historical significance of the centre, which has provided health care services to Calgarians for almost a century, has not been lost in the new project.

Sixty pallets of the red brick from the old Colonel Belcher facility were salvaged for use in the Sheldon M. Chumir Centre. The brick will be embedded into the on-site walkways to serve as a reminder for the former centre.

The centre is named after Sheldon Chumir, a former member of the board of directors for the CHR.

Chumir served the community in many ways and was also a Liberal MLA for Calgary-Buffalo, a noted philanthropist, a tax lawyer, a university lecturer and a businessman. He was also a Rhodes Scholar and strong supporter of the Calgary Beltline area.

In fact, he grew up only eight blocks away from the building that bears his name. Chumir died in 1992.

“Sheldon was a genuine, caring person who worked very hard to help those who were unable able to help themselves,” said N.D. “Skip” MacDonald, a CHR board member. “He was a strong advocate for the less fortunate in life. A lot of the health services that will be offered at the health centre are for these people so this is a fitting tribute to Sheldon’s memory.”

—Dan Leahul is the Resident Reporter for the Calgary Real Estate News