196_Panel_Lady-Minto-Hospital.mp3

otter.ai

11.03.2023

no

Unknown Speaker 0:00
I don't think I can talk as fast as Bob. But then this subject is a slow subject, it's goes back to the slow Salt Spring of days gone by, although I think we will bring it up to the present as well. Before I start, I just like to thank a number of people who are involved. I'd like to thank Frank Newman for doing his thing with the slides. He's just invaluable. We can't say enough about Frank. He's always helping us with all these things. And I'd like to thank my duty for helping me with this place, I put up women's auxiliary for providing their display board, and I but most of all, I want to thank these people for being part of the program. So many people have been involved with the hospital who know a heck of a lot more about it than I do. It seems presumptuous of me to be talking. So I thought I would involve some of the people who, who have all this information. But to begin with, I just want to say a few things about the hospital. I wonder if I could have read? Can I avoid this microphone? No, okay, I won't. I can lift it. Oh, how's that? Good. I try it this way. I just started hold up the book. I wish I had a bigger picture of the old hospital. That rural hospital to me, symbolizes the little sad spring. And perhaps to some extent, the current sad spring, the spring where people cared a lot for each other and helped each other it was a lot of volunteerism. And that is what how the hospital actually started with volunteers, with with people who were contributing to, to build something that the arm didn't have that would be used by everybody on the island.

Unknown Speaker 2:13
Just a few few quick facts about the hospital. The hospital started with a liner Beach, who was a doctor in 1913. He he and his his son were both doctors Lionel was was retiring. And he wanted to see a hospital on the island. And he started working towards it. He was assisted by a group of women known as the girl that sunshine and I'm just going to read something from book that's right here. The girl of sunshine was was created, quote, to unite the sympathy of its members towards helping each other our neighbors, our institutions, or any other benevolent interest or object which may be decided by the majority of its members. That's trying to brighten other lives and bring sunshine to all. So they're involved in a number of good works. But the hospital was the main thing that they were involved in creating. And they raised a lot of the money to pay for the hospital. And they worked with Lionel Beech back in 1913. And the hospital opened next year 1913 You probably hear she come next month probably here but a lot of these women because they're probably part of the the more work What's your topic and Bob Lazar women, right? And when you start working our reading about Saltspring history. So much of says bring history or the women. But then so so much of history all over the places, the women, the women are areas, creating things, working things, making things work, building things, men graphs to where but the women are building things back home. So a lot, a lot of a lot of respect for the women. So the hospital was built with donations, government grants to some extent. Both beat Dr. Beech and the guild of sunshine, applied for grants and got them. The hospital was built in 1914 opened in 1914 at open debt free, which was quite an astounding thing. Even in those days, but especially would be today nothing was debt free anymore. And if it was built within just a few months really. So you know, unlike things like our swimming pool, which seems to have taken about 12 years, the hospital hospital is built very quickly. So that's that's the big the first big thing and then the second thing, big thing in terms of the hospital went along for a number of years expanded a little bit, you can still see the building because it's now a Community Community Services Center, up on Ganges Hill. And it's kind of a neat building to go into, I'm sure everybody here has been. And some of the old things that belong to the hospital are still there, I think they're still really dumbwaiter in the in the walls, you know, the way they set things up and down. There's all kinds of hidden things are supposed to be a ghost in there. All kinds of interesting, interesting, interesting things that were part of the original hospital. But the next big move was in 58, when the current Hospital was built. And of course, it wasn't quite the current hospital because it's been added on to as well, but largely the current hospital. And so that's the second second thing. And another amazing woman was largely responsible for that Barbara Hastings, who almost single handedly worked to to have that that building built. Then, the next big thing, I should say that the hospital was run by a Board of Management volunteers, old timers, a lot of old timers on the island now who, you know, Pat Lee, for example, was was one of the people on the Board of Management, and they were actually running the hospital. But I understand that the real the real boss of the hospital was a person called the matron, who, in many hospitals will be the Chief Nurse. And I think that you, you probably will hear more about about matrons, as, as this presentation goes on, but they were the ones who were really managing the hospitals, they were in the old time administrators. At some point, the matrons were replaced, they were still there, but they were, there was a hospital administrator hired that the, the management board was replaced in 9719 97, when hospital care and BC was regionalised. And you'll hear more about that, from people who know a lot more about it than I do. And the volunteer birth management was replaced by the Vancouver Island Health Authority, otherwise known as visa. And some people feel that was a good thing. And some people thought it wasn't such a good thing. And we're, we're that's the way it is today. So that's just a little sort of history of the hospital. Just in you know, I would have said more, but we really want you to buy the book. And so I don't want to say too much, because that might prevent you from buying the book. So what we're going to do, it's gonna be a very loosely organized presentation, I'm hoping that people who have stories to tell as they become appropriate will raise their hand and say, I've got a story to tell, and we want to hear those stories, especially ones that I haven't managed to put in the book. This is probably more your stories and my story, because I'm looking at you, I know that you're a lot of you were here a lot longer than I was, some of you are born in the in the hospital at the old one or even the newer. Already, most of you were born in the Old One if you were born here. So I want to hear those stories. So I'm gonna ask Simone, who has done an awful lot of research on the hospital say a few things. She has a few stories she'd like to tell. And then we move on to some of the other people here who will talk about the development of the hospital and some of the some of some aspects of the hospital. And who knows how this is going to turn out. It's not. It's not planned in stone. So I'm hoping for some really new new things or some new things that I've never heard.

Unknown Speaker 8:54
I'm like Charles, I think Why talk about the history when you could buy the book and not only hear all about it, but also help the foundation. But one thing we didn't mention too much. When Malcolm Pinto was the administrator. He was very keen to publish a book on the hospital 75th anniversary of the building of the first hospital, and a group chaired by Gordon Brown, and Diana Hayes in 1983 and 84 gathered some very useful photographs, and memoirs of past to staff members. Their group was also responsible for a staff reunion held up at the old hospital on the hill. Gordon Brown was having health problems at the time, moved to Victoria and the idea was shelved until I think the foundation may be approached Charles I'm not sure and said how about doing a book on the hospital. And it's now been done 20 years after the original one was planned. And if you want to look If you look over on one of the displays, there's a picture of the reunion of these some of the old staff members in 1984. And there's two women we don't recognize. So we'd be happy if somebody could figure out who they were. And that's it. Part of the old lady mento that didn't get too much in our book was about the nurses home. It originally how some of the staff, Carol Kay told me when she was married, she left for her wedding from the old nurses home, as she was living there with two other nurses at the time. The building now is used for a number of things, community and public health, home support, a Foundation office, and meeting room for in service education. And the Nancy Shaw room, which is used, sometimes for patients who come from the elder islands who need a bed before surgery in the morning. And of infrequently, it's used, possibly from an offer for an off Island nurse or doctor. One other thing that didn't make it into the book, when I was working one June morning in 1946, I realized something was happening, the light bulb was swinging this way, in that way. And we had our first first Quake that I had heard about here. And that was frantically thinking how I was going to get this very large, elderly patient from upstairs, down the very narrow stairs. And if I did, it would probably take the whole staff, which was myself and undergraduate and the cook in the kitchen. We have learned at the Jubilee during the war, how to lift a patient on a mattress to move them in it. I really didn't think we could do it with less than three of us. Anyway, by then it was all over. So I didn't need to worry because it was it was a 7.2 earthquake, but it only lasted for about a half a minute. That's really all I have to say Charles, except by the book and all the rest of us there. And when are you going to introduce Karen? Sure.

Unknown Speaker 12:28
I think I'd like

Unknown Speaker 12:29
Paddy, would you like to say something about the butcher mum and Patty Morris's mum was matron in the hospital. And I gather she ran, ran it in a very strong way. She was she was, she had quite a reputation. So we can say something about your mom and the way the hospital was run. And this was one of the most fascinating aspects of the old hospital in my opinion.

Unknown Speaker 13:06
Thank you, Charles. And thank you, Sue. Thank you for doing this. I think it's such an important part of Saltspring bringing all this history out. And I've only got about six or eight pages. But truly, what I want to do here is when Charles and Sue asked me if I would say a few words where I found my sister Penny. And of course, when our mother was matron, she was there for what, 15 or 16 years and she was 24/7. And so we were 24/7 kids. We didn't see her sometimes for a couple of days, actually. But anyways, I just sort of want to go through some memory words. And if there's anybody here that are nurses or actually worked in the hospital, they'll build these triggers maybe memories. Antennae, sent me a lot of these. Oh, I'm sorry, my mother was Beth Peterson. Pregnant. Okay. No, that's that's true, sorry. That she was Peterson when she first in fortnight to 43 and 44 when she took over as matron and then she married Nelson, Degnan and 52. And then she was instrumental actually she and Barbara Hastings were very good friends. And she was very instrumental in getting the new hospital as well. A lot of hours put in there and she was administrative for actually two years going back to that administration part. And in those days, it was running around in the black. It was there was no debt. But there again, I think it was from people in the community donating and I can remember that hospital day for one, and baskets of fruit and veg troublesome things being brought into the kitchen. So this this should help. Anyways, visiting hours stood in to the word all day. This is so you could get your sleep because you're in the hospital because you're sick you're not there for visiting and everyone had a nap after lunch and we'd all go in. I was in eighth as my sister was. And curtains were closed and the pillows were fluffed and, and everyone got a backrub when the lights were out at night, and again, the pillows were fluffed, and I remember my mum always said he'd go down and you pull the blanket up from the end of the bed so that their feet can stick up. You know, you don't have to have your feet on turned on. I remember that one. Flowers were out in the hallway. Because they weren't, they didn't stay in the room overnight. And I don't know if you remember this, but I remember folding newspapers for the garbage bags. And they were pinned on the side of your bed and it was a night nurse the nightshift of this they did all the sterilizing everything. And not much there weren't too many infections in those days either. There is it was uncanny mentioned carmelized. Was that a word? When we cleaned the beds after like between patients, we really cleaned everything off. We got that job, okay. But she seemed to think it was marbleized for some reason anyway, and would completely wipe everything down anyway and Dettol can always smell that Dettol smell. And the night nurse started the porridge in the morning for the morning shift. And they did the dressings folded the dressings, two by twos and the four by fours. And Mum or the nurse on duty did their charts at the end of the hall. Now when you walked into the building, there was a big window at the end of the hall. And I can always remember the nurses sitting at the end doing their chart work right outside of the operating room that was about as big as the table top there. And in that operating room. They did everything. Everything. And there's good stories. There's a couple of good stories in the book about that. And Danny remembers a basket of goodies that was kept under mums bed upstairs, she had a room upstairs because sometimes she'd have to stay overnight if someone was having a baby or if there was a special somebody who was really sick she would stay in that room overnight that Penny can remember this basket of goodies it was probably left there by the ladies is a builder of IoT II ladies. And these were three items for the hospital. And they gave them out like toothpaste and Kleenex and but Penny said she remembers the lifesavers especially I imagined she was under the bed. Here's a couple of little things that I just tagged on here. These are the shanks that we used to put on our uniforms. And there's a little garter belt thing remember we'd always have to hunt for garter belts to hold on nylons.

Unknown Speaker 18:27
I'm a collector as you can see, I can remember hanging out the washing over the out of the utility room and of course, it went out over the the roadway because the road went around the hospital and the washing went out over the roadway. And after that, you know and all the dust come but anyways, the washing was nice and smelled nice and clean when we brought it in. And one of the drawers rubber garage seats and the seats over them. And Penny mentioned to because she worked in the new hospital that that mum asked them to put a privacy folding door she was always thinking she was such a really modern person for her time. A privacy folding door sliding in the living room for nurses in the in the new this would be in the no residence so that the nurses that were staying there could have privacy if they had I guess if probably if a fellow came in for family anyway. And as I said, as I mentioned before, it was 24/7 and I can often remember if we only had two minutes on the telephone to talk and Mike was quoting me at the time was a little difficult at times but misunderstanding would get on the telephone. You have to get off the phone the what your mother's wanted on the phone. So mom would come to come to the phone. And another memory was when We're having a concert in this in the old man Hall. And we're just about ready to come on the stage. And I heard Mrs. Peterson, you're one of them a telephone. And she didn't see me. I forget what I was doing. But it probably wasn't that important anyway, but at the time, you know, when you're a kid, you know, but the hospital came first. But those are just a few things that that I don't know what else you want me to say. But that's, that's a lot of memories.

Unknown Speaker 20:34
Thanks very much, Patti.

Unknown Speaker 20:41
One of the things I didn't I forgot to mention was when I talked about how they raised money for the hospital. And I'm sure most of you know this was that they sold memberships. So for $6 a year, an adult could be covered for whatever care they needed in the hospital, I think was $1 and a half for kids. And there was always a campaign to join people up. And that's that was one of the ways they financed the hospital, that I thought that was kind of an interesting thing. It's kind of an early insurance policy, but a lot less than what we're paying these days. Although I imagined $6 back then was an awful lot of money. That also occurred to me that when they were starting the first hospital here, some of the meetings might have taken place in this very building, because this is a historic building. So just a thought, I'd like to introduce Ken Davies, who has worked in the hospital for a very long time and has seen an awful lot of changes to the hospital. And I gathered from seeing her in the hospital today that she's still doing some stuff in the hospital. And Karen will talk about a few things, but some of the changes and perhaps we were also talking about extended care. That was one of the things and what was the other thing? Oh god awful Island. Yes, because the hospitals service it wasn't just a Ganges, or a Saltspring hospital it was as it's called the Gulf Islands hospital. So lady Minto Gulf Islands hospital. So Stan will tell us a little bit about some of the off Island things. Thanks.

Unknown Speaker 22:40
put my glasses on, so I don't miss anything here. Thank you for inviting me. It's a great pleasure to be here. For those of you that don't know, I've recently retired two years ago, and my time at lady mental hospital, my 33 years there was fabulous. It was it was a passion with me. I loved it. I worked as a general duty nurse, and worked my way up as a head nurse, the director of nursing the administrator and any other title they cared to throw at me. When I first arrived at lady Minto, in in early 73, the new extended care of course, had just opened. At that time, there were only two doctors clinics here on salt spring there was the Nessman clinic and the Dixon clinic. Now I don't know whether you folks remember this, but I sure do. If one group of doctors came into the nursing station, the other group left there was not much cooperation and collaboration in those days. It was very Oh, wow. Like if they were to make the dollar in the end. At that point, the four doctors worked in isolation over the years that changed dramatically. And it was really great to be a part of it. In 7910, more extended care beds opened. Certainly realizing that there there just wasn't enough for some of our senior citizens here on the island. They also did the business office and the front entrance. When I first came to Lady mental hospital, you walked right into the emergency room practically. This is the new building. There was no office, business office health records, admitting any of that. The other fond memories when I first came, there was a volunteer ambulance crew. And when anyone called the hospital anyone needed an ambulance, they call the nurses at the hospital so the one nurse had to call a list of volunteers to send the ambulance out to get whomever then Kevin's in 1974 BC ambulance service took over that which really relieved our burden because it was really difficult. But I do have one story about my very first nurse escort transfer off the island and Fortunately, the patient wasn't very ill. And the to one of the drivers was, of course, our Undertaker, goodie. And the other was one of the local pastors. So we delivered our patients safely. Christmas, the fairy coming home. So good. He said, Well, we better go and have some supper. So off, we went to a little restaurant and he said, Karen, have you ever had a martini? And I said, No. And he says, Well, now's a good time, because I got the stretcher right here. So I had my very first martini, with goodie. And he used to delight in seeing all the nurses downtown and say, Oh, Karen, I didn't recognize you with your clothes on. Instead of our uniforms. He was he was a devil. In sort of the 1980s to 90s, health care on on the island, really came a long way to improve dramatically. We really stepped up to the plate. Because we had to meet provincial and national standards, there was new technology, certainly a lot of new staff expertise. And we were required to ensure that our staff, both nursing and medical were kept up to date and everything. Our small, outdated emergency room was very soon replaced in that timeframe. Again, when I first arrived, the emergency room was about as big as that table. And we had room for one stretcher, if you were all slim people. We were very fortunate in receiving some funding from the Ministry and certainly the lots of funding from the community and the auxilary to update our little emergency room. Also, in the early 70s, we started with what's called hospital accreditation. And that still carries on today. And that's a national organization, the Canadian Canadian college of hospital accreditation, and it measures hospitals and their staff and their equipment and their standards with every other hospital across the country. So that folks in the East Coast come and monitor and measure and accredit the hospitals on the West Coast and vice versa. So it's a very, it's actually quite exciting. And I knew I'd been in the healthcare in administration too long when I said that I enjoyed accreditation, because it, it can be pretty grueling. But we at lady Minto, felt that if we lived up to our standards on a daily basis, accreditation was nothing. They could come in any time because we knew what we were doing, met the current standards. And I can't say enough about the nursing staff. Certainly the hospital board supported us financially in any way they could to ensure that everyone kept up as far as their education went. Our first accreditation was in the 70s. But our last accreditation that I was involved in in 1996. Before we became regionalised, we were awarded a three year accreditation, which is the top award. And it was actually wonderful that they said, we really hate to say this, but the fact of the matter is we have no recommendations for you. And that was sort of the first they'd had so it was it was really exciting. In 1991, we developed a hospital community palliative care program, and that again, this was a really dedicated group of nurses and doctors and hospice workers, pharmacists to try and develop a program so that we could provide care, good palliative care for people in the hospital or in their homes. And we worked very hard at getting that off the ground. And in 1997, our program actually won the John McCreary award, excuse me on that. So UBC award that was established for into interdisciplinary health teams, and we were one of 22 that applied, and we won the awards. So that was pretty awesome. And over the years, we shared our program with many other small hospitals and communities throughout, actually right across Canada. It got to the point where we always had our program at least two copies ready to send off to whoever wanted to find out what we've done. In 1999, again, we were really fortunate to be one of 10 small hospitals to receive funding to build a psychiatric observation unit. Plus the funding for all staff education so that we could care for psychiatric emergencies say flee legging into hospital. So that was that was also a very a real bonus for the island as before that we unfortunately had to to deal with psychiatric emergencies in our emergency department which was open to everyone and lots of other folks there. That was another proposal that we were fortunate we were able to share with the rest of the province. Then in April 1997, April 1 1997, to be exact, the government regionalised health care in our province. And we then went from each hospital being autonomous having its own board of directors and its own administrator to run its own business. We all became amalgamated. So we became part of well, there's been several name changes, but the Vancouver Island health authority. So in fact, now all of the facilities on the Gulf Islands and from Victoria, right up to Alert Bay, are all part of the Vancouver Island health authority. And we have one CEO or administrator, one board of directors, and each site has a manager. So on April 1, my title became manager of the patient care of the Southern Gulf Islands. And that was the the time that I really started to do a lot of work on the outer Gulf Islands. Galliano main Pender and Saturna. They were really struggling to try and and have some sort of health care and little emergency rooms. So with the regionalization, and I had a lot more support both funding and technology, we were able to set up little emergencies on each one of the islands. And that was, that was a huge challenge. But what a satisfying one, we developed a nurse first call program for the outer Gulf Islands so that when the physician had time off, there was a nurse that could cover for him or her. So over the years, things just carried on and mushroom the or expansion or palliative care suite, all these wonderful things. But through it all, we've always always had the hospital auxiliary ladies to with us at all times, both for support on extended care, but also providing funding to the hospital

Unknown Speaker 32:34
in the early 90s. Before regionalization, we, the board and myself, and a few of the senior management decided it was time to think about having a foundation, because all hospitals have foundations. And so we should probably do the same. So we started to develop. You know, obviously you have to do the rules and regulations and the bylaws and all those wonderful things first, so we kind of got that all underway, and started a little foundation kind of off the sides of our desks. And it was a mom and pop organization, we we really managed to do a few things. But we just didn't get into much greatness. We didn't have time because we had a full time job. So it didn't take long to recognize that we had to have the foundation as a separate entity. And Nora will tell you a little bit more about the separate entity. So in closing, I just want to say in my 33 years, regardless of the position I was holding, whether I was a general duty nurse or the CEO, the staff kindness and compassion of our staff, the medical staff, the nursing staff. Always it was it allowed us to have our friendly Cottage Hospital. Not to say that everyone was perfect and that we didn't have to do lots of disciplining. I mean, we all know there's there's good and bad and we all have to work together. But we always felt that lady Mental Hospital is truly the little hospital that could. So with that, I'll hand over the mic. Thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker 34:22
Thank you very much, Karen. I think I should say something but Lady mentor. She's not here today. She's in the book. Yes. So it's telling me not to say too much because you won't buy the books. I have to be careful how much information I give out. Lady mento was never really involved in the hospital despite the name. The hospital was was started. Largely the funding. Some of the funding came from the Victoria order of nurses. Lady mental was the Governor General's wife I have the governor general who was the Governor General, before the lady mento was started. So she wasn't even in Canada at the time. But she happened to be the patroness of Victoria order of nurses. And at that time, I can't remember how many I think it was about 52 Cottage hospitals were started all over the country. And they were all called Lady mental hospital. So our hospital was called Lady Minto. Gulf Islands Cottage Hospital. That was its original name. And was Karen reminded me of that when she was talking about the cottage quality of the hospital you already feel of the hospital. So that was very important. We're thankful to Lady mental for being the patroness of the Victoria ordered nurses. But I think there will be a Victorian order of nurses is the organization that should be thanked for the hospital, as well as all of the of the good people who raised money on Saltspring. And that brings us to our next speakers. Originally, the weather we talked about the gills of sunshine that raised money to build a hospital. Eventually, the yellow sunshine was replaced by what was known as the women's Auxiliary. Today, it's known as the hospital auxiliary, which allows some of us men to be numbers, although I don't think I've seen any men. Do you have any men in the way we do? Oh, great. Oh, good. So that's a gala. terian. Now, men are being biased, there's no bias against men. So I'm going to ask Ross Hope, who was the president of the hospital advisory, and Kay booth who's who's got a long history with the with the women's area and the hospitalist theory, to say a few words about about what you do and some of your funny stories, hopefully.

Unknown Speaker 36:58
Thank you. And good afternoon, everyone. When Sue, I was at Charles Ford, me and asked to do a short presentation on the association of the hospital, with our auxiliary or rather the auxiliary hospital, I did panic, because I've not been a member of the auxiliary for too long. And I certainly haven't lived on Saltspring for very long. But thanks to SU, who took me down to the archives, I was able to Potter among all these papers and have learned a lot. So thank you. It's made me much more knowledgeable as your C. K is with me today. And you've probably guessed before we were introduced that we were here representing the hospital auxiliary, these overalls are somewhat distinctive to say the least. Ks, as you will see is a slightly different shade. And when she gets to speak, she will tell you something about her overall, then if you had very good eyesight, you would notice that on the color of my overall and pin to please overall, we have little pins. And if you had exceptionally good eyesight and I don't even know if Mary here can read what it says on this pin or on case pin. But these pins link both k and i to the very early days of the auxiliary because of course it says President on mine and past president on keys. And this takes us right back to the first president of the auxiliary. Mrs. I hope I get the two initials correct, G. J. Mart, who was elected first president in 1936. Now, I'm going to look at my notes for some of this information because I just can't remember all the information. And we are. However, the auxiliary was inaugurated in 1936 and became an official society. It does, in fact, predate that there was an auxiliary to the hospital before that. And mention off it is made in the Sydney and Gulf Islands review. And also in the hospital board minutes. And I want to just say a little about some of these earlier mentions in 1920, which recorded in the board minutes that the Secretary will be instructed to write to all the women's organizations on the island to form an exit theory. So that seems to have been the first thank you one of the first mentions of an auxiliary. Then 10 years later in 1930. We read in the hospital board meeting minutes that the auxiliary had organized the New Year's dance. And that emotion was passed that the auxiliary meet more often. In 1933 board minutes record that the annual hospital shower was left in the hands of this group. And so it would appear then that this area auxiliary was somewhat of an ad hoc committee. It consisted of board members and our wives of board members. And they seem to be responsible for organizing the New Year dances tag days on hospital showers, as well as doing sewing and mending for the hospital. Then in December of 1933, at 35, sorry, at a board meeting. And this is scones and Mrs. M beamlet. reported on the BC hospital convention. And they spoke about the benefits of a good working hospital Auxiliary. It was suggested that the existing asilia be enlarged and that our public meeting be held to organize this auxiliary. So this was duly done. And on January the fifth 1936 50 Ladies met and Julie firmed the new auxiliary. This auxiliary was quite independent of the hospital board. And it was named the lady men for Gulf Islands Women's Hospital Auxiliary. Now, I want to show you something interesting that I found in the archives and Sue allowed me to borrow. It's our little booklet that's called bylaws of the lady Minto. Gulf Islands, women hospital auxiliary, as you will see. And there's one or two entries that I would like to just read out because I find them quite fascinating. First of all, I think I'd like to tell you who those first officers were, who were elected. You may actually be related to some of them, or you may well have known some of them. But the first president was Mrs. G. G. Mort, her vice president was Mrs. Johnson, the secretary treasurer and Mrs. Springs and the Social Secretary and Mrs. M. Mort. So that firmed the first executive. Now, let me read you the first bylaw pass here. Any lady desiring to become a member of this society may do so by paying the annual fee of how much do you think, Oh, very good, you should get a price. And it is in fact 25 cents now. Our annual fee is $6. Not too huge an increase. Now, the other interesting things here for me, was first mentioned in the list of officers for 1940 1939. And apart from the episodes I mentioned, there was inclusion of an additional secretary who was called the Dorcas secretary. And this rather intrigued me the DACA Secretary and I have known a darkness when I was a little girl but that was as far as it went. I knew there was some biblical connection. But once again Sue came to the rescue and was able to tell me that the darker secretary was responsible for the material that getting the members organized for the sewing and mending. And what it says here in the book is actually says what her duties are. The darker Secretary shall report from requirements at each monthly meeting. and on the members approval, the secretary treasurer shall purchase material for seen. But it's not until 1939 that we actually see it recorded. And from 1939 until 1947, as it indicates in this book, the darker Secretary was in fact, the matron. And I'm not sure if that would include your mother when she was yes, yeah. No. I haven't been over to find out at what point the Docker Secretary became redundant. But we certainly don't have a Dorcas. Secretary today. Now, where do we go next? I guess I would like you to have a look at this. This is a list of the very first donations that the auxiliary made to the hospital blood pressure instruments addressing wagon linen, bed and clothing trays and electric Bell, toaster, kettle Hill, our alarm clock. Anybody liked to guess what the value of endless walls? Sorry? No. Not from that. Okay. Here we are. It was actually $91.35. Now, I'm going to show you our 202,007 donation list of the hospital

Unknown Speaker 47:01
fluid way.

Unknown Speaker 47:03
The Sterling chair matricies. And I think it should be commodes not just one televisions overbed tables. And maybe Karen can tell us I forgotten what the Sterling chair is a special kind of chair anyway. Oh, it was very easy. You. Thank You, Dorothy. Yes. No heard anyone like to hazard a guess what we paid for this session or more than $91. That's pretty close. Someone said 100. Their $106,651.03. Pretty impressive. Now, I'm just going to show you one more total. And you can perhaps work out what this represents. It's an even bigger amount of money $1,403,579.92. This is the total contribution from 1936 up to 2007. And thanks to our treasurer and our past treasurer who is with us today, Dorothy Kyle, we were able to get all of these figures together and total it up. So I think we should be pretty proud of all the women in our auxiliary both past and present. And so what I'd like to do now is asking to see her a few words because she is one of our oldest members left in terms of age, but in terms of being a member of the auxiliary, according to the wall, k will tell you herself. So Kay if you would like to tell us a bit about how the thrift shop itself came into being and maybe about about your overall to

Unknown Speaker 49:22
this is more about thrift shop formation itself. And it came about because we had only used rummage sales to make money for the auxilary. And we got to the point where the running sales had enormous amounts of stuff that hadn't even been looked at at the sale. So it was decided that we could go after a thrift shop. But it was Anita Brown's initiative that really did it. She went ahead and rented the premises across from GVM. And it was a pretty shaky operation. We didn't know if we were going to make money for the rent even. But that went okay. So by that was 1971. And so in 1971, we decided we would go ahead with the thrift shop. And morts was renovating the mall at that time. And we took a big leap because the rent seemed enormous. And if we could make $25 a day, we'd cover our expenses and not go broke. So we decided to try for that. So we went through the whole thing. smokes are everybody eats everybody. Everybody paid for their own smart that it's not free, right. The first year we thought we needed to make $140,000. Well, that was pretty good. But it just went on and on. Due to the enormous support of all the members and the members of the community. We just kept going more and more and that was 37 years ago, we started. So there's still quite a lot of members that still belong. I think Anita and I are the oldest surviving members. And probably see who's next. Oh, John Buckley was probably the next mic you the exhilarate still going strong at thrift shop. But we have some wonderful memories of the rummage sales that went on before because they were pretty hilarious outfits. Long John's were one of the biggest contributors to the sales and there was some pretty funny things went on and everybody would get into the long johns while we were sitting. And that was pretty good fun. And then we had a party after the end of the rummage sale where everybody had to come in stuff they bought the sale and one of my memories is of a six foot three man who was really built and he was wearing a rope wig and the heavy stress and just it was fun, but really hard work oh yeah. Yeah. And the prices were also bought the sale good. Some of the things that we gave us prizes were silk VVb if anybody knows what it Bvd is and firstline commodes if anything crazy went but the whole point was that we made money. So it just went on and we had

Unknown Speaker 54:18
floor.

Unknown Speaker 54:53
Personal stake there for many, many years or later

Unknown Speaker 55:19
thanks thank you Kay. And I just want to let you see another scrap of information I found Kay mentioned this as something that happened prior to the thrift shop opening. But here's an advert for the hospital bargain de to be held on Saturday, September 16, of 1967. And underneath and smaller print, I noticed it says the held a silent auction. Some of the things I caught out movie projector, a propane hot water tank, a GE hand mixer. And today, silent auctions are still part of the way we raise some funds. In fact, last week, we just finished having another one. Obviously, the thrift shop is our main stay for raising the funds for the hospital. But we also have our annual Christmas sale and I'm using this as a plug here to be held on Saturday, November the first at the meeting hall. So if you want to further our contributions to the hospital, then why not show up then, Dorothy I've got that on my list. The hospital showcase also raises money. And in fact, I found that way back in 1931, there was mention of a rule convener. So we've obviously been involved in knitting goods, since then anyway. So that raises quite a bit to through the year, it's constantly replaced as items are sold. And one other item that has our event rather than has taken place over the last two years is we've taken us stole the artspring medal for the community flea market. And this July, we more or less doubled what we took in the previous July. So these are the various ways we make our money. And then of course, we plow it back into the hospital, and the other health care facilities. Certainly we participate in ECU extended care unit at Greenwoods. And also Bray Haven. And finally, perhaps the majority of our members work in some capacity at a thrift shop. We have numerous others who are working at these three facilities to in fact, Dorothy is our Greenwoods coordinator and also for the Haven and she was the members who work there. Set up special events, special meals, special gifts for birthdays, and special days. And that happens at extended care unit as well. Anyway, I think through all this, and I'm not sure if this goes right back to our original Constitution. But our purpose the purpose of the lady mentor, hospital auxiliary society as changed his name in 1974. To that, as Charles said, The woman, woman or women was dropped, and so men can be part of it. And we do have at least six men. So if any of the men here feel they would like to join with more than welcome. Anyway, the purpose of our society is to contribute to the comfort and welfare of the patients and residents of the lady mental golf violence Hospital and the other health care facilities. And I think that during the years from 1936 to the present, we've certainly demonstrated that thank you

Unknown Speaker 59:45
thanks very much, Ross. You're probably catching on that this really just a big plug for the hospital where there's going to be a little basket at the back when you leave, you can drop your $100 bills into it. but I was actually floored when when I was working on this book and found out how much money the hospital auxiliary has raised over the years, and that they were raising about 100,000 a year now. It's just incredible. And I was also quite impressed with the amount of fun these people had. Like, there's this picture in the book, on page 70 of the book of all the women in those days, this was about 10 years ago, in a chorus line. Chris, the photo was taken by Derek Lundy, and he has his ways of getting people to look very interesting and photographs. But obviously, as you could tell from the things that Jay said, they've had a lot of fun raising a lot of money over the years. So maybe for $6, it might be a good investment for some of some of us men to join.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:04
Our last, our last speaker is Nora McCloy, who's the vice president of the Hospital Foundation. And this is another side of raising money for the for the hospital. And Mara, we were talking about, I guess Roz is relatively new to the island, Nora is as well, although she's not been here for eight years. And it's really nice to see people become involved in things like the Hospital Foundation, or the or the hospital auxiliary, or the Historical Society. For that matter. It doesn't matter what organization you belong to on the island, you need volunteers. And Nora Nora has been working for six years. Now, this is just ending her six year term with the Hospital Foundation. And she's going to tell us a little bit about what the foundation does today.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:58
Thanks to the foundation today is comprised of about 12 board members. That includes representatives from the hospital exhilarate, we have one representative from the hospital Israel on the board. And we also have a representative from the metal community medical community, so one doctor, and then we also have the manager of the hospital who sits on the board. So it's a relatively small group of people that puts together the annual fundraising, we do it with the support of basically three administrative people, none of which are full time. So don't get excited and think that we have three full time employees. But they are absolutely indispensable, in terms of keeping those of us who volunteered on top of things. Just going back a little ways, we don't have a lot of anecdotes, because we haven't been around for that long. But in 1992, was the formal establishment of the foundation. And the foundation started off with various small fundraisers including a foul ball. You're aware of the Phantom Ball, which was a successor to that, and was the idea of Diana Hayes, who I think is well known and has been a really instrumental person in the foundation and is one of those the three administrative support people that we have. The Fountain ball is been a huge success for us last year, I think about in about $60,000. But the great anecdote we have is that Diana is always a great sport. And she and Harvard go out into the community usually to promote the fountain ball. And a couple of years ago, they decided they would go out and they went out with masks on. And unfortunately, hit was not that long after one of the bank robberies, and they went into the Bank of Montreal branch and cause great consternation and one employee actually went home, I believe, because she was so upset by it. So they don't visit the bank anymore. That's why one anecdote. The foundation's had an interesting evolution, even in the time that I've been involved with it in 2002, the foundation was approached to participate in the capital expansion of the hospital. And this was the upgrading of the operating room and expansion of that. Actually, physical changes were made to the infrastructure of the building to accommodate other activities, and also the development of the palliative care unit. And it really, I think, was a really seminal change in the way that the foundation looked at things. Until then, we had been an organization that focused on annual fundraising and putting out money annually for equipment. But raising over $600,000 really brought our attention to the fact that we had to be prepared to fund larger expenditures of a capital nature in terms of plant and that we couldn't rely on the community to come up with the potential volume of money we might need in any given year. So because of that, we started looking had an endowment, and contributing funds, particularly funds that we received from bequest to the endowment. And in doing that, and starting to accrue those funds, we had to formalize our structure more. So one of the things that has happened is that we have a much more formal committee structure, we have a financial advisor that we use a professional financial advisor. And the current size of the endowment is about $2.6 million, which is great because it generates income annually for us to spend. And it's also a resource there for us and the community. Obviously, it should another large project need to be funded. Our annual donations are roughly $300,000 At this point, and that doesn't include the quests I've left the quests out of that number, because they they really make our donation numbers go up and down quite dramatically. For example, the year before last week, we had a half million dollar requests one single request for half million dollars, which put our total donations up over a million dollars. This year, we got for the year ended March 31, we got $259,000 in requests. So you can see that our financials can look a little bit roller coastering, because of the requests, but the requests are just absolutely so critical to building that endowment and creating a future for the hospital. So they're really wonderful, and we're most appreciative. The largest project that we've taken on was the operating room and palliative care unit, the hospital has had discussions about another large project. And we are sort of standing by but the her has other distractions, like a joint hospital Island. And so we don't know when when that will come in what form it will take, but we're certainly trying to be prepared for it. The focus of the foundation is on capital, expenditures equipment and plant. And one of the challenges that we're starting to consider is what to do about operating costs. Now, we don't expect that the foundation should be put in the position of funding basic staffing costs. But there are costs that come up from time to time that are not capital costs, but contribute to the operation. So one example of that is specialized training. So that's one of the things that's going to be a challenge for us in the future is to find where to draw that line between our historical path of supporting capital, and a future path of possibly supporting operating expenses as well as capital. And I think that's about all I have to say.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:44
Thanks very much, Nora. I'd like to thank again, the people who helped to set this up, and especially the people up here who participated, I forgot to mention Roberta Stark, who was instrumental in coordinating this whole thing for the Historical Society. I'd like to thank the Historical Society. And now I'd like to just allow you if you have any questions, or if you have any stories you'd like to share I know we've been going for a while so but I'd like to have this opportunity Tom

Unknown Speaker 1:08:21
I remember I was quite conservatively dressed, but I think must have been at Czarist Russia. And the reason I wanted to mention that really was because he was there as I remember, I hope I got this seems to be his costume involved

Unknown Speaker 1:08:48
I hadn't done that for years

Unknown Speaker 1:08:57
thanks for sharing that Tom. Gritty was quite a character and there are some some fine gritty stories in the book, which I won't tell you now because we want you to buy the book of course. Any other questions or stories you'd like to share?

Unknown Speaker 1:09:17
Pretty story involving the hospital coming from Victoria tracking the first ordinary speed on the highway rear ended by a brother and a woman pulled over to the side of the road. Couldn't you wait? Thanks, Nancy.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:50
Any others?

Unknown Speaker 1:09:52
You don't have to restrict yourself to good stories. Okay, well, I think

Unknown Speaker 1:10:14
Okay, my name is Mike Morris. And my first trip to Lady Smith hospital or Lady Smith. Lady Mental Hospital was on July the 28th 1935, at 5am With the help of Bob rushes, dad, Dr. Rush, and this was my first trip to Lady mental hospital 20 years later, me and a friend, kind of rip the side of the hospital off. And if you want to know about it, read it in the book. Also, Dr. Dixon was mentioned when I was in Alert Bay, working in the power house there and came friends with Dr. Dixon. And he told me that he'd heard of this little clinic that he could buy down on Saltspring Island. And I thought, well, that's great. I was born and raised there. So we'll fly down and have a look. So we got the alert, the airlines flew down. We stayed with the batsman, who was the matron at that time. Anyhow, he took the job, moved into paddy craft and chose for his office. And about six months later, my mother in law phoned me up and said, Where did you find this doctor? And I said, Well, he was with Dr. Pickup and Alert Bay and she said only about accounts for that. I was just having lunch at the golf course today. And I ran into my old friend, one time him and told him we were coming up here. And he said, Oh, yeah. Beth Peterson, your mother in law. She was the matron said, I'll tell you a little story. Nobody else know what she said, Deb. Cut off his his toes with the double bitter dynamics, right through his booth. And they rushed him up to the hospital. And Dr. Meyer was there. And I guess he had two or three toes missing when we got his booth off. So Dr. Meyers, was smoking a cigarette, the nationalists were falling down. And anyhow, it proceeded to so the wrong toe on the wrong place. And that Peterson thoughts moment that times that no, no doctor, but the cigarette out and this toe grows over here. And that's a true story. And there's another story about in the book, and I'm pushing the book here about Dr. Francis, dropping ashes in a wound. And you can find that in the book, also. Thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:33
Thanks, Mike. I think I think people have sat long enough, I hope to stay and have coffee and tea. And thank you very much for coming. And I'll pass this back to

Unknown Speaker 1:13:41
thank you very much, folks for a great program. Good to see you again. Kay, and all of you and it's good to hear the hospital stories. It's very valuable institution in our community. And I'm glad so many of you came out to hear it. The book is at the back has been mentioned many times. Before you go I'd like some volunteers to help me with the museum on Saturday and Sunday if you have an hour so if you would put your name down, see me I'd be glad to have you help out I can give you a schedule, and tea and coffee is provided. And you have a chance to look at the various displays and don't forget the computer displays as we go. Thank you very much and see you next month.