December 5, 2001 — TORONTO — Steripac, a healthcare facility in Canada providing reusable sterile linen surgical packs to Ontario hospitals for specific operating room procedures, is now fully operational. Steripac is a new Ontario company that is a wholly owned division of Booth Centennial Healthcare Linen Services (BCHLS), a large-scale healthcare laundry non-profit organization that is owned by member Greater Toronto Area hospitals.

“We are pleased to announce that Steripac is now fully operational in a new $1.8 million expansion facility in Toronto that is a separate ‘business within a business’ created by Booth Centennial Healthcare Linen Services,” said Jean-Pierre Viau, CEO of Steripac and BCHLS. “We are also proud to announce that Steripac has already retained satisfied hospital customers. Steripac now serves the North York General Hospital, the Don Mills Surgical Unit, the William Osler Health Centre (Brampton Campus), Trillium Health Centre, Markham Stouffville Hospital and Mount Sinai Hospital.”

Steripac provides packages of linen for hospital operating room procedures. The facility has a staff of 50 full-time employees. Using a state-of the-art cleanroom environment, company officials say Steripac offers Ontario hospitals major advances in both efficiency and sterility, at a time when both cost-effectiveness and drug resistant bacteria that resist sterility measures are becoming a pressing concern for Ontario hospitals.

BCHLS is a non-profit organization that is owned by the hospitals that pool their linen services within the firm. The main plant was originally named Booth Avenue Healthcare Linen Services, which later merged with Centennial Healthcare Linen Services to create a larger firm offering increased efficiency. The new entity formed from the two companies was then called Booth Centennial Healthcare Linen Services.