The School of Nursing opened in 1951. This photograph is from the cover of a promotional pamphlet for the new School of Nursing of the Jewish General Hospital.
Interior shot of nursery, two nurses in masks tending to babies, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, ca. 1950s.
Photo Credit : Jewish Public Library Archives
Exterior shot, aerial view of Jewish General Hospital and grounds, Montreal, ca. 1950s.
Photo Credit : Jewish Public Library Archives
A nurse takes care of a patient who has been placed in an iron lung, a steel chamber to maintain his breathing ability, at the Jewish General Hospital, ca. 1940s or 1950s.
Unidentified man studying x-rays, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, ca. 1940s.
Photo Credit : Jewish Public Library Archives
Group portrait of men, including Horace Cohen, Allan Bronfman, Rabbi Herman Abramowitz, Governor General Earl Bessborough, and Joseph Levinson Sr., standing outside next to tent, at Turning of Sod Ceremony, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, 1931.
Photo Credit : Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives
The photograph shows a special citizen's meeting with more than 3,000 people in attendance on Sept. 22, 1929 at the Mount Royal Hotel. A one million dollar campaign was inaugurated by Montreal's Jewish community to collect financial pledges and to proceed with plans to build the Jewish Hospital.
Published in the Montreal Daily Star on Sept. 23, 1929, the editorial cartoon shows a goddess, who symbolizes humanity, holding a poster on which is quoted Mr. Michael Hirsch's statement on the goal of founding the Jewish General Hospital. Mr. Hirsch was the joint chairman of the Committee of the Capital Campaign in 1929.
Photograph depicting capital campaign billboards set in different districts of Montreal's Jewish community raising funds for the Jewish General Hospital in 1929.
When the Jewish General Hospital (JGH) was inaugurated in October 1934, few could have imagined that it would eventually rank among Quebec’s largest, busiest and most renowned healthcare institutions.
The story of the JGH begins in the 1880s, when many Jews began to flee the anti-Semitic persecution of Russia and Eastern Europe, and to resettle in cities across North America, including Montreal. Unfortunately, the religious discrimination that prevailed in Quebec during that era prevented Jews from receiving medical care—and from finding employment—in most of Montreal’s larger hospitals. Thus, during the 1910s and ’20s, as the Jewish population of Montreal soared from 5,000 to 20,000, health care was provided mainly by several small Jewish clinics. However, by the late 1920s, it was clear that these under-staffed and under-equipped facilities were insufficient to meet the rapidly growing need.
In search of a solution, Montreal’s Jewish leaders conducted a feasibility study and determined that proper health care could be delivered only by a modern general hospital. The proposal to build the hospital was resoundingly ratified at a mass meeting of Jewish Montrealers in September 1929.
Ironically, only a few weeks later, the task of funding the construction grew much more complicated, as a result of the crash of the U.S. stock market and the launch of the decade-long Great Depression. Nevertheless, the determination to build a Jewish hospital (with support from the provincial government) was so strong that all of the pledges—even those made by private citizens of modest means—were eventually honoured.
As the 1930s dawned, and with the launch of the JGH still several years away, the hospital’s founders decided that one of the cornerstones of the new institution would be a policy that has remained in effect ever since: an official commitment to offer health care and employment to all individuals, regardless of their religious, ethnic, cultural or linguistic background.
And so, when the JGH opened in 1934, it was among the earliest public healthcare institutions in Quebec—and possibly even the very first—to officially adopt a non sectarian, non discriminatory policy. This outstanding move was highlighted in a number of opening-day speeches, including those by Montreal Mayor Camilien Houde, a representative of the Premier of Quebec, and the Governor General of Canada, Lord Bessborough, who described the JGH as “a monument to that spirit of charity toward your fellow men, which has always been the characteristic of Jewry throughout the world.”
Since 1934, the JGH has lived up to the vision of its founders by implementing the latest technological developments in medical treatment, complemented by the sensitivity and compassion that patients need and deserve. Over the decades, the hospital has evolved into a healthcare hub in its Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood, which is home to a large number of new immigrants from a great many countries. Although English and French are the most common languages spoken in this officially bilingual hospital, dozens of languages can be heard in the JGH over the course of a typical year.
In 2015, as part of a province-wide reorganization of the public healthcare system, the JGH was among the many healthcare and social services facilities in the west-central portion of the city that were brought together to form the Integrated Health and Social Services University Network for West-Central Montreal (also known as CIUSSS West-Central Montreal).
The hospital’s most significant modern milestone was the opening in early 2016 of Pavilion K, the largest, most complex and most ambitious expansion project in the history of the JGH. This large critical-care wing now houses the Emergency Department, Adult Intensive Care, Neonatal Intensive Care, Coronary Care, the Family Birthing Centre, the operating rooms and many other units and services.
Today, as a McGill University teaching hospital, the JGH is the site of one of Quebec’s top comprehensive cancer centres (the Segal Cancer Centre), and of one of Canada’s leading research facilities (the Lady Davis Institute). With a staff of more than 5,100 (including nearly 700 attending doctors and over 1,600 nurses), the JGH annually handles more than 700,000 outpatient visits, over 84,000 emergency visits, nearly 12,000 surgical procedures, and the delivery of approximately 3,700 babies. In addition, it benefits from the activities of at least 1,000 volunteers.
