St Pauls Hospital Accomodations

[Zedeff]

Hey friends, I'm a Med 4 at U of Manitoba and I've got an elective set up in Saskatoon at St. Pauls Hospital starting on October 5th. I'll be there for 3 weeks and am scrambling to find a place to stay.

 

Ideally I'd like to be in walking distance to the hospital. At home, the area around out teaching hospital (HSC) is, to be polite, a dangerous slum. Is the same true of SPH? Would it be completely crazy to stay at the Westgate Inn Motel on 22nd St West?

 

I'm obviously trying to find a place to stay on a budget. Even a "cheap" hotel is going to cost over $2000 for one elective. Suggestions appreciated.

[Mourning Cloak]

St. Paul's is in an . . . interesting part of town.

 

That said, if you're a big guy you probably won't find it that intimiating. If you're a 90 pound girl you're not even going to want to walk across the street outside of daylight hours. (It's OK in the daytime, but not at night).

 

20th street (west of Idywyld to about Avenue W) is a bad part of town. Definitely NOT worse than what you're used to around HSC, of course. And the Westgate is pretty far down 22nd - as you go further and further west, it gets better. It's not a great area of town, but so long as you're not a girl staying by yourself, I'd say not dangerous. Not fancy, but not too bad. You have to walk back through the iffy area, but 22nd is a major artery and entirely safe during daylight hours. Lots of buses, too. There's a major shopping complex (Confederation Mall) just a little further east that's also within walking distance.

 

PS - You might want to contact RUH and ask about the shuttle - there used to be a shuttle (free for staff/residents/med students) that ran between City Hospital, Royal University Hospital and St. Paul's. This would give you the option of staying near one of the other hospitals and just shuttling between them.

[Zedeff]

Thanks for the info. I got an email from someone in Saskatoon offering me their 1 bedroom apartment for the first two weeks of my rotation, so thankfully I might only have to ghetto it for the last week.

 

If the area around St Paul's isn't worse than HSC then I think I'm okay. I lived within 1 block of HSC for almost 2 years and these days I still walk to the hospital every day, so I think I'd be okay in that environment.

 

Thanks for the tip about the sketchy areas and the nearby mall. I don't know anyone in SK so keeping myself occupied for three weeks might be a challenge.