Around 1880,
Université Laval à Montréal decided to found a hospital. The secretary of Université Laval à Montréal, Dr.
Emmanuel Persillier-Lachapelle, was given the mandate to establish the new health institution, assisted by the Sulpician Victor Rousselot, parish priest of Notre-Dame, as well as Mother Julie Haineault-Deschamps, of the
Congregation of the Grey Nuns. Hôpital Notre-Dame opened on July 27, 1880, housed on the former premises of
Donegana's Hotel on
Notre-Dame Street. From the beginning, the hospital was a
secular institution. It was administered by physicians rather than priests, which was considered innovative for its time. In the late nineteenth century, Hôpital Notre-Dame became one of the largest hospitals in the country, with six specialized departments:
general practitioners,
surgery,
psychiatry,
otolaryngology,
ophthalmology and
electrotherapy. In 1898, sister
Élodie Mailloux founded the first
French Canadian nursing school at the hospital. During its existence, the school trained over 3000 graduates. The first surgical intervention in Canada under
aseptic conditions was conducted at Hôpital Notre-Dame in 1899. Hôpital Notre-Dame has been associated with
Université de Montreal since its establishment in 1920. In 1924 the Hôpital Notre-Dame moved to its current location on Sherbrooke Street. In 1996, the merger of the
Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal, the Hôpital Notre-Dame and the
Hôpital Saint-Luc followed the creation of the
Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM). With the completion of the CHUM megahospital in 2017, Hôpital Notre-Dame was converted into a community general hospital serving downtown.
1934 strike On 14 June 1934, the internes at Notre-Dame commenced Canada's first
medical strike to protest the appointment of a "
Hebrew", Dr. Sam Rabinovitch, to the staff. Dr. Rabinovich was the highest ranking graduate of his class from the Université de Montréal, and was offered the position of chief intern. In early June 1934 a petition signed by doctors and interns of Notre-Dame was submitted to the hospitals board, requesting that the contract between the Hospital and Rabinovich be "broken". After a lengthy deliberation by the hospital board it was decided to uphold the contract and hire Rabinovitch Thirty-two
resident doctors walked off the job rather than work with Rabinovich, and by 17 June the strike had expanded to include interns from five other Montreal hospitals, with
nurses threatening to join the strike. Quebec Nationalist groups and media such as The
Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society and
Le Devoir quickly backed the striking internes. Rabinovitch formally resigned from his position on 18 June. The culmination of this and other antisemitism events led the Jewish community in Quebec to establish their own hospital. Funds for the new
Jewish General Hospital were obtained through charitable drives headed by Allan Bronfman, Sir Mortimer Davis and J.W. McConnell from the Jewish and Protestant communities. ==Pavillon Mailloux==