Hotel-Dieu unveils new ICU waiting room

The Windsor Star | Beatrice Fantoni
A waiting room at the Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital was officially opened Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2012, in memory of Trevor Funkenhauser. His father Gunther Funkenhauser and niece Gabriella Funkenhauser helped cut the ceremonial ribbon. (DAN JANISSE/The Windsor Star)

Hospitals are places where you can expect to do all kinds of waiting, and not all of that waiting is the good kind.

Gunther and Judith Funkenhauser, whose son died in hospital six years ago, know this first-hand.

So to help make waiting easier for families in Windsor, the Funkenhausers used the funds raised from their annual charity golf tournament to refurbish Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital’s intensive care unit waiting room.

The new waiting room was unveiled Tuesday.

“I’m so happy for the hospital letting us do this,” said Gunther Funkenhauser, whose son Trevor died in 2006 of endocarditis, an infection of the aortic valve which caused Trevor to suffer a series of strokes. “This is a bittersweet day.”

The walls of the new waiting room are painted in soothing moss green tones and there are long couches and a few reclining chairs so visitors can lie down and sleep. A section of the ceiling is decorated with a panel of twinkling LED lights, mimicking a starry sky.

And rather than show the view of the hospital parking lot, the room’s windows are decorated with translucent decals of seaside and mountain landscapes.

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