Pandemics past
A hospital inside Moncton Baptist Church
MONCTON — The ‘Help Wanted’ ad in the Oct. 24, 1918 edition of the Moncton Transcript gave voice to the desperation of the times.
“NURSE WANTED -- For the First Baptist Hospital, Moncton, a trained or partially trained nurse. Satisfactory salary arrangements. Apply immediately to DR. J. HINSON WEST, First Baptist Church,” the ad read.
As the world continues its battle with COVID-19, the church, still standing in downtown Moncton, has been reflecting on its role during the Spanish flu pandemic of a century ago, says Rev. Richard Jackson.
In October 1918, First Moncton Baptist Church opened its doors as an emergency hospital when the Moncton Hospital found itself bursting at the seams with patients suffering from “Spanish Influenza,” according to Dr. Donald I. MacLellan’s book, History of the Moncton Hospital: A Proud Past – a Healthy Future (1895-1995).
One of the most deadly pandemics in history, in just a few months, the Spanish flu caused more deaths than the First World War, killing an estimated 50 million people, said Jackson, an estimate confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States.
Jackson was aware for some time of his church’s involvement in the 1918 pandemic, but the parallels he’s been able to draw to current events, he believes, are helping his congregation through the current situation.
The lack of adequate hospital space in the Moncton area was a serious problem in 1918.
Accounts differ of how the arrangements were made to offer the church as an emergency hospital.
Church records indicate Dr. Hinson J. West, a Baptist himself who had been visiting his parents in town and was also a medical missionary, suggested the church as a second hospital to alleviate the space shortage, said Jackson.
But Bowley Green, chairman of the First Baptist Church Emergency Hospital committee, told the Moncton Transcript on Nov. 22, 1918 that he credited a Mrs. H. Coleman for speaking to the pastor to seek the possibility of using the church.
Regardless, the decision to do so was agreed upon unanimously by the church, Green said. “Many responded to the appeal for beds and bedding,” Green said in 1918. “Hospital supplies were obtained and in the early evening of the first day the first influenza patient was admitted.”
A large building of multiple floors, the church was almost new then, having recently been rebuilt in 1915 following a large fire in the city, said Jackson.
“Their understanding of germs and virology was much more primitive than it is today,” said Jackson. But even so, they knew something about social distancing, too. “They were trying to keep some distance from each other, thinking that might help,” he said. For this reason, the beds were spaced apart across three floors, he said.
The church hospital took in 25 patients in all, losing two who had double pneumonia on top of influenza, said Jackson. At the time, the mortality rate of those who caught it was thought to be much higher than that, he noted.
Many of the emergency hospital’s doctors, nursing staff, cooks and others had responded to ads placed in the newspaper.
Beaulah Cutler was one of the nurses to answer the call, although she had no nursing experience, said Jackson. Cutler worked as a telegraph operator from 6 p.m. to midnight every night, would sleep and then show up to the church by 7 a.m. to attend to the patients, he said.
The hospital was open for approximately six weeks, according to hospital records compiled by MacLellan. It closed on or around Nov. 11, 1918.
While cases still occurred in 1919, “Sort of like they are predicting with our pandemic today, it was coming and going in waves,” said Jackson.
And periods of illness were not so different either. The average stay in the hospital was 12 and a half days, according to Green.
The city offered financial aid to the emergency hospital but Green said “Through the large liberality of our Moncton citizens we have not been compelled to avail ourselves of the city’s generous offer.”
For Jackson, talking about the influenza pandemic again has been “a reminder to our people that we’ve been through this type of thing before and we not only survived, we thrived in the midst of it,” he said.
“Back then the congregation could have stuck their heads in the sand and said, ‘you know, we’re in the middle of a war, we had the church burn down, we can only take so much’, but instead they said, ‘what can we do? How can we reach out?’”
So they found a way to help and 23 lives were saved.