The Urban Health Acute Care Unit at St. Paul’s Hospital is a 24 bed unit that provides acute hospital care for patients with infectious diseases, addiction, HIV/AIDS, and chronic/acute illness associated with marginalization. Previously the unit served as the 10C HIV/AIDS Ward, which operated from 1997 until 2014.

Due to the success of the BC-CfE’s Treatment as Prevention® strategy, reducing new HIV diagnoses by approximately 80% from the peak in 1987, there was no longer a need for a dedicated AIDS ward after 2014. The area was refocused and renamed the Urban Health Acute Care Unit and in July of 2020, moved to Unit 8A in St. Paul’s.

In addition to treating issues of HIV-related opportunistic infections or adverse reactions to HAART, physicians in the Unit are seeing more frequent injection drug use-related infections, such as cellulitis, endocarditis, osteomyelitis, and complications of chronic liver disease (e.g. hepatitis B and C). About 70% of the patients admitted to the Unit are active or previous injection drug users.

The Urban Health Acute Care Unit provides a much-needed multidisciplinary service which is patient-centred, trauma-informed, and includes a progressive harm reduction approach to addictions management. The care team is particularly experienced in the management of infections among marginalized patients who are often underhoused and with few community supports. The unit has built up extensive linkages with other care facilities and support groups in the community.