May 31, 1955: First birth at new MGH

In the spring of 1955, the Montreal General Hospital moved to its present location on Cedar Ave. It had previously been split between the Central Division on what is now René-Lévesque Blvd. just east of St-Laurent Blvd., and the Western Division near Atwater Ave. and Tupper St.

On May 31, 1955, we celebrated the birth the previous week of the first baby born at the new Cedar Ave. building.

This photo, published in that day’s edition of the Montreal Gazette, shows a gowned hospital president W.S.M. MacTier presenting a silver christening mug to Una Patricia Dobell and her mother, Mrs. Alfred M. (Elizabeth) Dobell of Westmount.

While the medical particulars were not reported — other than to note that the baby’s birth weight was six pounds, five ounces — in those days the hospital stays of newborns and their mothers were typically much longer than today.

The $20-million new hospital had a total of 761 beds and 51 bassinets; its kitchen could prepare 5,000 meals a day, we reported. And instead of wards, patients were housed no more than four to a room.

Transferring patients had been a gradual process. In the May 30 edition, we had copious coverage of the previous day’s transfer of the final 103 patients to the new building. Those too ill to leave their beds were not taken by ambulance, but instead rolled out of the loading dock, into moving vans and lashed to the walls, we reported. The vans drove slowly, with a police escort, we assured readers.

“Last evening all the patients were ‘resting comfortably’ in the new, cheerful surroundings of the hospital that has been described as ‘quite the most modern in North America, if not in the world.’ ”