Fonds crha-2035 - Calgary General Hospital fonds

A Hospital Committee formed in Calgary in 1886 obtained a 4.5 acre land grant from the Territorial government. However, this land was outside city limits and could not be used for a municipally-supported hospital. CGH I (the Cottage Hospital) opened in a rented house on 7th Avenue SW in 1890. CGH II opened in 1895 at 12th Avenue and 6th Street SE. A training school for nurses opened the same year. A maternity block opened in 1899, becoming the nurses' residence in 1904 when a new maternity block was built behind it. The city approved funding for a two-storey isolation ward in 1903. In 1907 three acres were added to the 4.5 acre land grant of 1886, now within city limits. CGH III opened here in 1910. The old hospital served as the Isolation Hospital until the early 1950s. In 1911 the Board obtained another 12.5 acres. By 1914 the CGH Superintendent was responsible for CGH as well as the Isolation, Smallpox and Tuberculosis Hospitals. In 1919 these became a City department and the Board was dissolved. This situation lasted until 1934, when the Calgary Hospitals Board was created to run CGH. A nurses residence was completed in 1919, another in 1939, and another in 1956. Three additions and three new buildings were added to CGH in the early 1940s. CGH IV was opened in 1953, doubling the hospital's capacity. New buildings and wings were added regularly through the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. CGH became a teaching hospital for the University of Calgary's Faculty of Medicine in 1968, and the CGH Nursing School closed in 1974. When the Peter Lougheed Centre opened in 1988, the name of the CGH site was changed to the Bow Valley Centre. The name CGH then included both PLC and BVC (one hospital on two sites). The Calgary Regional Health Authority assumed responsibility for these hospitals in 1995, and the BVC site closed in 1997.