First days in the Village

The Games are finally here. Well, not actually as they officially start on August 7. It has been a long process of preparation and when I enter the Village, it comes back. It's like a memory as I have been very lucky to have been selected on many Canadian Health Care teams for major Games like these.

For the new reader, let me paint a picture. I am the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for the Canadian ParapanAm team for the Toronto 2015 ParapanAm Games. Long title but it basically means I have the responsibility to lead and coordinate health and medical services for the Canadian athletes at these Games. I do not "work" for the Canadian Paralympic Committee (CPC) as many think or imply. I am a member of the Canadian Academy of Sport and Exercise Medicine (CASEM). This is a national organization of sports medicine physicians. CASEM is asked to provide candidates to the CPC when they are setting up their Mission staff, the team of individuals who are the backbone of the Canadian delegation. The Mission staff is everyone except the athletes, national teams and supports like coaches and high performance personnel. It includes a large group of dedicated people whose jobs is to make the Canadian athletes feel they have a great environment to compete it. Everything from the press attaches and communications staff, athlete services, team services, coach support services, technology support and, you've guessed it: medical support. That's us. Anyway, after CASEM provides names to the CPC, candidates are interviewed and a CMO is selected. Once that is done, the responsibilities start by selecting a Chief Therapist (CT), and other members of the Health Care Team (HCT). It's the same process for all major Games including Olympic, Paralympic, Commonwealth, Pan Ams, etc. Every event starts with new applications and new volunteer opportunities. Yes, I guess I can mention it is all volunteer work.

So the PanAms are out of the Village and, after a few days of reorganization, we get to move a few people in. 5 of us have access and we can start setting up the accommodations for the teams and athletes. We entered on the 30th and the official opening is on August the 2nd. So, doing the math, we have 3 days to make these empty spaces into a fully functional Team Canada operations centre including a full Medical Clinic where we will treat all Canadian members on the team: 209 athletes and a total of just over 330 for the whole delegation.

Transport of our "stuff" wasn't as smooth as expected as it arrived in 3 different trucks over 2 days instead of 1 major shipment. We had over 40 pallets of "stuff" to unload. All by forklift and pallet jacks. I now know how it feels to be a mover or even more demanding, a person working in warehouses. Each pallett had to be broken down and the material on it distributed around where it would belong: 10th floor for the athletes' lounge, 9th floor for the Medical Clinic, Coaches lounge and Operations offices... Much of it in the basement  storage areas for retrieval later...like the over 300 clothing kits, each in individualized suitcases.

It still looks like chaos but today is the final work as we finally have all our equipment and it's time to get it organized. We don't really have a choice as all those 300 Canadian Team members are showing up tomorrow!

I know this was kind of boring as a blog but it's the first one and I thought it would be a good start to set a tone to allow you to get a feel of the experience through these pages. It's not all glorious and it does involve some heavy lifting. The behind the scenes nobody really knows about.

Gotta go. Please keep checking as new posts will pop up.

All my medical boxes emptied 

The Village before the crowds flow in

2 of the over 40 pallets we unloaded. Then the contents sorted and distributed throughout our spaces

Equipment and a few of our kit/clothing packages fromHBC, a great sponsor.
Unloading over 300 of them, then moving them to each athlete/member's bed .

R