90th anniversary flashback: Launch of the Herzl Dispensary, a JGH forerunner

As the JGH’s 90^th anniversary approaches, JGH News today looks back at: 

• The 1912 launch of the forerunner of the JGH
• Diagnosis of Michael Douglas’s throat cancer in 2010
• Out-of-place sinks in Pavilion A
• A visit from a princess in 1945 

Four new archival items appear every Tuesday in the 90 days leading up to the 90^th anniversary on October 8. Everything that’s been published so far can be found in the JGH News archive.

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The Herzl Dispensary in its original location on St. Dominique Street, where care was provided from 1912 to 1914.

Launched in June 1912, the Herzl Dispensary provided vital healthcare services to Montreal’s growing Jewish community before the JGH opened in 1934.

This small but well equipped Dispensary—staffed by a team of unpaid, volunteer doctors and healthcare workers—provided medical treatment and drugs to anyone in need, regardless of their ability to pay.

From 1901 to 1911, Montreal’s Jewish population skyrocketed from about 5,000 to 30,000, but until Herzl debuted, there was no organized treatment facility for the poverty-stricken newcomers.

In many ways, the Dispensary was not just the forerunner of the JGH, but a specific model for the hospital, with which Herzl merged in 1974.

When the JGH was launched, it adopted the Dispensary’s style of treating the patient as a multi-faceted individual, creating new health services to satisfy patients’ developing needs, and emphasizing preventive medicine

Of key importance: even though Herzl and the JGH had been founded primarily by and for Jews, their policy was to extend a warm welcome to patients and employees of all backgrounds.

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Michael Douglas praises JGH expertise in diagnosing his throat cancer

Michael Douglas (centre) with Dr. Saul Frenkiel (right) and Dr. Sheldon Elman, Chairman of Medisys Health Group, at a McGill University fundraising gala.

In May 2010, Michael Douglas offered public thanks to Dr. Saul Frenkiel, former Chief of the JGH Division of Otolaryngology, for correctly diagnosing the actor’s throat cancer after other physicians had missed it.

The heartfelt acknowledgement came at Le Windsor at a fundraising gala for McGill University’s Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. “Anything I can do to help your department at the Jewish General Hospital, I’d be glad to,” Mr. Douglas told Dr. Frenkiel at the gala.

While vacationing at his summer home in the Mt. Tremblant area in 2009, Mr. Douglas began complaining of recurring throat and ear pain, having previously been seen by several doctors who did not correctly diagnose the problem. This prompted Mr. Douglas to contact his physician in New York, who referred him to Dr. Frenkiel at the JGH.

A biopsy was ordered and within a few days, Dr. Frenkiel personally gave the diagnosis to Mr. Douglas. Radiation and chemotherapy were provided at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

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Why do some administrative offices in Pavilion A have sinks?

Drop into a couple of the older administrative offices in Pavilion A, and you’ll find them outfitted with a desk, a computer, bookshelves—and a sink? Yes, strange as it may seem, a few office workers can wash their hands without walking out the door.

The sinks are a holdover from the era (1951 to 1972) when Pavilion A housed the JGH School of Nursing. Student nurses occupied dormitory rooms on many of the building’s upper floors, and although the young women used communal bathrooms, they had the convenience of a washstand in their rooms.

After the school closed (because nursing education was centralized by the provincial government), many dorm rooms were renovated and most of the sinks disappeared. Even so, a little bit of porcelain history lingers in some of the pavilion’s unlikeliest corners.

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A 1945 visit from a princess

During the early 1940s, the JGH Auxiliary’s Honourary Patroness was Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, who was the wife of Canada’s Governor-General, the Earl of Athlone.

In 1945, the Princess (centre) visited with Annie Goldbloom (left), the Auxiliary’s founding President, and Lucy Bronfman, a founding Auxiliary member and wife of the JGH’s first President, Allan Bronfman.