90th anniversary flashback: JGH extends helping hand in 1998 ice storm
As the JGH’s 90th anniversary approaches, JGH News today looks back at:
- Providing shelter during the ice storm of 1998
- Introduction of the CIUSSS structure in 2015
- The first Weekend to End Breast Cancer in 2005
- The 2005 real estate purchase that made Pavilions H and K possible
Four new archival items appear every Tuesday in the 90 days leading up to the 90th anniversary on October 8. Everything that’s been published so far can be found in the JGH News archive.
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During the 1998 ice storm, members of the public were supplied with mattresses and linen in certain areas of the JGH until their electricity was restored.
In the aftermath of the devastating ice storm of January 1998, the JGH stepped up to ensure that shelter and warmth were provided to as many people as the hospital could handle.
The storm paralyzed Montreal and left numerous homes without electricity in frigid weather for days on end. This forced many members of the public to turn for help to public institutions like the JGH that were capable of generating their own power.
The JGH welcomed many of those who found themselves out in the cold and provided them with cots in the Samuel S. Cohen Auditorium in Pavilion A, as well as elsewhere in the hospital.
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JGH joins CIUSSS West-Central Montreal in 2015
In its issue of spring 2015, JGH News (which was then a paper publication) focused on the hospital’s participation and leadership role in CIUSSS West-Central Montreal, which had just come into existence with the enactment of Bill 10. The cover story reminded readers that while much was now bureaucratically different, nothing had changed in the JGH’s commitment to provide compassionate care of the highest quality.
In April 2015, after more than 70 years as an independent institution, the JGH became just one of the many sites—albeit the largest and most influential—in CIUSSS West-Central Montreal, a large network of hospitals, long-term care facilities, rehabilitation centres and other providers of health care and social services.
This dramatic change, which affected facilities across Quebec, was the result of provincial legislation designed to bring greater efficiency and cohesion to the public healthcare system—a structure that remains in place today.
Despite initial apprehension by some members of JGH staff and the public, the hospital was able to retain its distinctive identity, as well as ensuring that donations to the JGH Foundation would still be used exclusively to support the JGH.
In addition, CIUSSS West-Central Montreal as a whole was granted permission to continue providing services in whichever language healthcare users prefer, including English.
Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg, who had served as Executive Director of the JGH since 2013, was appointed President and CEO of the new network, a position he continues to hold. He pledged to unite the CIUSSS’s nearly three dozen facilities into a seamless, interlocked institution.
“It’s been said that if you want to create a group with a sense of collective identity, get them to build something together,” Dr. Rosenberg declared in 2015. “This is precisely the inspiring challenge before us today.”
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A rousing launch for the Weekend to End Breast Cancer
Jubilant walkers stream out of the Olympic Stadium in 2005 to begin a tough but rewarding two-day effort to help eradicate breast cancer.
After many months of painstaking planning, diligent training and tireless fund‑raising, approximately 3,011 people streamed through the streets of Montreal on August 27 and 28, 2005, in the first Weekend to End Breast Cancer.
Their rousing and emotional 60-kilometre walk gave a major boost to the treatment and prevention of breast cancer in the Segal Cancer Centre at the JGH.
At the time, the Weekend was the largest event of its kind ever held in Montreal, raising approximately $9.2 million. By the time the final walk took place in August 2015, a total of more than $58 million had been raised in what, by then, had been renamed the Pharmaprix Weekend to End Women’s Cancers.
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JGH acquires property of Les Soeurs de Sainte-Croix
The expansion that the JGH has undergone in the 21st century would not have been possible without a pivotal event that took place on February 1, 2005: the purchase of nearly six acres of land and two buildings from Les Soeurs de St. Croix (Quebec Region), an educational order of nuns.
Present at the ceremony to finalize the purchase of property from Les Soeurs de Sainte-Croix were (from left) Sister Annette Legault, JGH Executive Director Henri Elbaz, Sister Thérèse Lefrançois and JGH President Stanley K. Plotnick.
The property just north of the hospital, stretching from Côte‑des-Neiges to Légaré, enabled the hospital to convert a convent into Pavilion H, while providing the land on which to build Pavilion K.
At a historic signing ceremony in the hospital boardroom, JGH President Stanley K. Plotnick said the hospital has been “blessed to have neighbours who care so deeply about people and their welfare.”
The agreement marked the culmination of a warm relationship that had existed for decades between the JGH and Les Soeurs de Sainte-Croix. Over the years, the JGH had expressed an interest in buying the land and asked to be the first to be offered the property whenever the Sisters felt they were ready to sell.
In 2002, the Sisters informed the hospital they were ready and a special letter authorizing the transaction was issued by the Vatican.
“We refused offers to build condominiums, because we wanted to serve the community,” said Sister Annette Legault, Regional Director of Les Soeurs de Sainte-Croix.
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