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History of the NICU

The Ottawa Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit had its humble beginnings at the Elizabeth Bruyère Hospital in the 1970s.

In 1980, when the Ottawa General Hospital moved to its new site adjacent to the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit was a six-bed unit. However, there were often as many as 12 infants in this small unit.

Six-bed Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, 1987. Photo credit: Paul Latour, Ottawa Citizen.

The need for additional beds was quickly recognized and, in 1990, the Hospital received funding to create a newly designed 24-bed Level III NICU.