Sitting right between the Queen Elizabeth Way and the Oakville GO Station, and next to a Home Depot store and parking lot is a red brick building with windows covered over by sheets of plywood. The building is fairly easy to miss if you're not looking for it, but once seen, it stands apart from the surroundings. This building is the former Oakville Lifecare Centre, originally built as a hospital for terminally ill patients.
Location | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Oakville | ||||||
(Oakville, Ontario, Canada) | ||||||
Built :: Closed | Status | Difficulty | ||||
1958 :: 2003 | Demolished | ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ | ||||
Hazards Risk | Security Risk | AUE Rating | ||||
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ | ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ | ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ | ||||
Hazard Observations | Security Observations | |||||
None Specified | None Specified |
At some point during its lifespan, the Centre stopped being a hospital and became an old-age home; this is evident in the photographs and other mementos scattered throughout the building. However, it stopped serving this purpose in 2003, when all of the residents were moved from the building as the building was re-purposed into an emergency centre during the 2003 SARS Outbreak. It was never actually used for this purpose, and left to rot after the outbreak.
And rot it has. Local vandals have ensured that most of the glass in the building has been destroyed, and scrappers have torn apart most of the building in search of valuable metals. What they haven't taken care of, though, Mother Nature has. During rainy weather, water pours into the building from almost anywhere, leaving a trail of water damage throughout.
There will be no future for this building; it has gone too far down the road of decay to be worth repairing and reusing. Instead, it is likely that it will be knocked down and the land will become the home of new condominiums.
However, as it currently stands, it is worth a look.
FEBRUARY 3, 2011 UPDATE
A while back I got an email that went unnoticed for about 10 months thanks to an overzealous spam filter. I finally got it, and have decided to share it with you as it comes from a former employee of Oakville Lifecare.
i used to work at oakville lifecare centre. i quit only a month before it was "evacuated" - i recall that there had been very little advance notice that they (the health care workers) had to move people out, and then they had something like 24 hours in which to do so. my coworkers told me it was chaos and heartbreaking...trying to get old people onto buses, dressed only in their nightgowns, trying to keep them warm with blankets...trying to pack up all their belongings..."evacuating" and sending them off to areas unknown, these crazy, demented, contracted old people we had connected with and loved. rushed. going on late into the night.
very crazy to see the pictures of the inside. crazy. cool. crazy. leaves me with mixed feelings.
it was an awful place to work, but one of the best. i have fond memories. we never had enough, or decent supplies...the last 6 months when things were really bad - having repairmen come and take back parts of the elevator because they weren't paid...the elevators only working some of the time...having 2 months worth of garbage pile up in the back because that bill hadn't been paid either...having only pork to serve at dinner for weeks, despite residents having either dietary or religious restrictions...water leaks...cloth diapers and everyone had awful contractures and bedsores.
it was like nursing in a warzone. having to improvise with what you had. us health care workers bonded because of how bad conditions were there. the loyalty to each other and the residents and the quality of front line workers there, was fabulous despite the reputation the place had.
very cool and strange to see the pictures. and you were only there recently too! thanks. :)
if you want...feel free to paste this note underneath the description/photos of the place - a firsthand account of back in the day, lol.
AUGUST 8, 2012 UPDATE
Getting word from several people that it looks like someone is doing something with the property - there are numerous construction vehicles and people around. Might still be doable, but not sure at this point.
NOVEMBER 24, 2012 UPDATE
Drove by earlier tonight since I had heard that the building had been demolished... and that indeed is the case! Another GTA location is now nothing but rubble.