Ste. Anne's Hospital

Ste. Anne's, a classic wood and stucco building, was constructed in late 1917. Its location was an enviable one. Built on land leased from Macdonald College of McGill University, it was convenient to the main highway connecting Montreal and Toronto as well as to the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific rail lines. Hospital cars, designed to facilitate ambulatory and stretcher cases from all over the country, could unload at the hospital doors where two sidings had been built. Specialists from Montreal had easy access to the hospital because of its proximity to the city which also made patient visiting easier. It was also a good location for the patients themselves who could enjoy the benefits of Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue's fresh air on the shores of Lake of Two Mountains and the Ottawa River.

The initial contract was for the construction of four buildings with an administrative wing and a surgical wing in the centre. Other buildings would be added later.

The hospital was arranged as follows: four parallel buildings were all inter-connected by a corridor. Each two-storey building was 250 feet long and 40 feet wide. The interiors were functional, well-equipped and quite spacious, although not particularly attractive. According to the contract record, the Operating Wing had the most up-t-date equipment for surgery and massage therapy, and had facilities for hydrotherapy and electrotherapy.

Patients had ready access to outdoors from the two-storey buildings. Each wing had large windows and spacious verandas. Patients seated near the corridors could see staff and other patients moving about, and the wards were easily accessible from one another. Within a few years, gardens would be planted between the hospital wings.

The frame construction of the buildings was covered with two layers of waterproof building paper, strapping, and metal laths to support two coats of stucco. Inner walls were sheathed in asbestos panels and the floors were maple. There was an electrical generator on the hospital grounds. Water was supplied by the municipality. Inexpensive and rapidly constructed buildings such as these were in use until their demolition for replacement by the new thirteen-floor building in 1970.

Starting as a temporary building, Ste. Anne's was readily converted to a permanent structure. Although there was no basement, the foundations had been dug below the frost line.

The wartime atmosphere at Ste. Anne's was friendly but disciplined. In 1926, the Military Hospitals Commission began to impose military discipline on the institutions under its jurisdiction. This was to improve attendance at trades training programs and to reduce the risk of misconduct by some of the returned soldiers.

Military districts were transformed into Hospital Commissions Command Units, thereby placing staff and patients alike under military authority. Military discipline was the order of the day until Ste. Anne's moved to its new premises in 1970. Today, a number of long-service employees still remember the home-like atmosphere that reigned in the old hospital. There was discipline, yes, but friendliness as well, and everybody knew everyone else.

Post-war Period

On November 11, 1918, the war that people thought was going to be the war to end all wars came to an end. This was good news for everyone, including the hospital. But patients would continue to be admitted for a number of years. In 1920, the hospital was placed under the newly-formed Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-Establishment. On April 1, 1920, a centre for neuropsychiatry was established and patients from the Cobourg Ontario Military Hospital were transferred there. That same year, a thirty-bed tuberculosis wing was built on the hospital grounds. In 1924, the hospital began to provide nursing care to patients in their own homes. While the rest of Canada was getting back to normal, Ste. Anne's Hospital continued to care for the men and women who had fought for their country.

Then as now, Ste. Anne's had two separate elements: general medicine and psychiatric care, and the hospital put a great deal of effort into caring for the mentally ill.