A new, larger Ronald McDonald House in Winnipeg held its grand opening Sept. 14.
Located three blocks away from Health Sciences Centre, the site of Manitoba’s children’s hospital, the new house is about 48,000 square feet, more than four times as large as the Bannatyne Avenue house, and features 40 bedrooms, each with their own private bathroom, compared to 14 bedrooms at the current building, which has already been sold.
Other improvements at the new house include secure parking.
“We needed a larger facility to serve and support more families,” said Wendy Galagan, CEO of Ronald McDonald House Charities Manitoba. “The number of 40 bedrooms was determined based on the needs of Manitoba and pediatric health care.”
The new $20 million building will lower the number of times that families are turned away from staying at Ronald McDonald House, which charges eligible families just $10 a day, because there are no vacancies.
“As an organization and as a staff, the hardest thing to say to us is that we’re full and we can’t serve a family,” said Galagan.
In 2021, the house and the Ronald McDonald Family Room in HSC served 866 families, providing nearly 4,000 nights of accommodation and saving those families over a million dollars in out-of-pocket expenses.
Approximately 40 per cent of families who stay at Ronald McDonald House while their children are in hospital travel 100 kilometres or more round trip to get the care they receive in Winnipeg and Galagan says that about 10 to 15 per cent of the families the house accommodates in a typical year are from Northern Manitoba.
Jennifer Zolinksi of The Pas is a member of one northern family that used the house this year. Her son was born premature and immediately admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at HSC, where he stayed until two days before what had been his expected due date at the end of August. Though she and her son are back at home now, her family spent over 100 days at Ronald McDonald House while he was being treated.
“It’s really hard to put into words how meaningful that place really was,” said Jennifer, whose husband Chad had to return to The Pas to work, though he visited them in Winnipeg when he could. The cost of approximately $1,000 to stay at the house would have only covered a few nights in a hotel, said Jennifer, and the Zolinskis also appreciated that it was a safe place that offered free transportation to and from the hospital. ”I think that was good peace of mind for him.”
Jennifer said she didn’t even know there was a Ronald McDonald House in Winnipeg prior to her stay there but she appreciates knowing that staying there will be an option when she takes her son back for further treatment.
“Knowing that we can depend on somebody like that is so important,” she said. “You just feel so much better knowing that.”
