SUTHERLAND, Eleanor Wilma March 6, 1928 - January 9, 2021

Dr. Eleanor Wilma Sutherland, (Née Miller), MD, CCFP, 1928 - 2021

After a lifetime of campaigns, advocacy and dedication Dr. Eleanor Sutherland has wrapped up her successful efforts for women`s equality, indigenous rights, social justice and public health for all, passing away on January 9, 2021. This mother of Medicare in Canada calls on us all to carry on, so get vaccinated, get vaccinated early and get vaccinated often.

Born at the little green island hospital at Norway House, Manitoba on March 6, 1928 to Ernest Walter Miller and Inez Adeline Craig, she was "brought on strength" by her father's signals regiment and made an honorary Swampy Cree, before she was two months old.

Her early life was full of travel and adversity. She suffered from tuberculosis and scarlet fever in her early childhood and travelled by canoe, buckboard and train following her father (who was running the telegraph from Churchill to Powell River) across Western Canada.

She was schooled in Camp Borden, Kingston and Victoria, worked summers in canning mills in Powell River, and followed her dream to become a medical doctor despite naysayers in the family and in academe. She was a brilliant student. Alongside her second Cousin Loris Jordan, they tied for highest marks at Victoria's Craigdarroch Castle in their final year of high school.

In 1948 Eleanor travelled four days by coach class to arrive at Queens University without confirmed acceptance. She was the seventh to be accepted during a period when women were only allotted six places, but due to one no-show, she was able to enter the School of Medicine. After three years at Queens, she moved to Edmonton to study with her new husband, Dr. Ralph Sutherland, at the University of Alberta`s School of Medicine.

Eleanor was a resident physician during the Polio epidemic in 1951-2 and often spoke of the difficulties that doctors faced when there were more acute patients than iron lungs available. Shortly after her graduation, she had her first child, Ross. She and Ralph practiced at Camrose, Alberta, where their daughter Jane was born. After hunting around in 1955 they bought into a practice in Eastend, Saskatchewan, where Eleanor was the anaesthesiologist and Ralph the surgeon. She always remembered Eastend fondly and she was most appreciated by the town`s women as their first resident and female physician. Her last two children, James and Robert were born in Eastend. Robert was only a few months old when the family moved to Toronto in 1959, so that Ralph could take a Master in Public Health degree at the University of Toronto.

By 1961 they were back in Regina, where Eleanor worked at the Wascana Rehabilitation Hospital until 1965 and took shifts at the Regina General on the emergency ward. In 1962, Saskatchewan became the first territory in North America to introduce universal medical care. Ralph was the Director of that plan and Eleanor one of the doctors who defended the new plan by working through the so called "Doctors' strike", which saw many physicians withdrawing their services from the public.

After the change of government in Saskatchewan in 1965, the family was wooed to Ottawa where Ralph was asked to take part in the national roll-out of Medicare. Eleanor became one of the first rehab physicians in Ottawa, working at the Royal Ottawa Hospital. She also began work in the emergency ward of the National Defence Medical Centre, where she would continue until 1991, acting as the staff doctor in her last years there. She worked at Carleton University Clinic doling out contraception and advice. She was also taken on by Revenue Canada as an expert witness for several years in the late 1990s and early 2000s. She entered into private practice in the mid-1990s, first with Dr. Lily Cornell and then with Dr. Gerd Schneider until 2015. These years in private practice were some of her most memorable and we are often reminded of her gifts of memory, wit, wisdom, kindness and thorough treatment from her former patients. In total, Eleanor practiced medicine for 62 years and she never got tired of it.

While in Regina, Eleanor also began a long career as an advocate for Indigenous peoples. She became a member and then Director of the Indian and Métis Friendship Centre, Regina from 1962-64. She was on the Board of Directors of the Indian and Eskimo Association of Canada from 1969-74 and director of the Canadian Association in Support of Native People in 1974-75.

She was a staunch advocate for women`s rights and for women in medicine. She was the secretary treasurer of the Federation of Women Medical Association Ottawa, 1969-71 and treasurer of the Federation of Women Doctors Canada, 1975-76.

Among her many efforts toward social justice, she was a founding member of the Ottawa chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility (later known as Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) and a life-long New Democrat (even though her father had run for the Liberals in 1957). Her walls are adorned with signed campaign posters from Tommy Douglas, Jack Layton, signed poll sheets from Ed Broadbent's win in Ottawa Centre and from Marion Dewar (who was a close friend) and Marion`s son Paul Dewar. She was a legendary poll winner, both at the door and over the phone, helping her son Robert, who ran the campaigns for Ed and Paul in Ottawa Centre.

Eleanor loved only two activities as much as militating for a good cause; her week with her family at Red Pine Camp every summer over the past 30 years and playing bridge - which she played all over Ottawa, most recently at St. Elizabeth's Church. She wanted to thank Tony Edwards for his efforts to make those games happen.

Eleanor was predeceased by her only brother Harrison Craig Miller and is survived by her four children: Ross (Nancy Bayly) of South Frontenac Township, Jane of Ottawa, Jim (Heather Semple) of Ottawa, Rob (the late Barry Simon) of Bells Corners and her ex-husband Dr. Ralph Sutherland of Plevna, Ontario. She also leaves behind four grieving grand-children Wesley Sutherland of Toronto, Alison Sutherland of Cambridge UK, Grace MacDonald of Kingston and Candice Bayly-Whittaker of Sydenham; as well as two great grandchildren, Brianna Ramsay and Ronnie Johnson Jr.

She will be missed by her cousins Ken, Bill and Mary Miller. Eleanor will also be deeply missed by Loris Jordan, her second cousin, best friend and dynamic bridge partner of over four decades, as well as Loris`s six girls, Isla, Wynne, Marcia, Denise, Robbi and Adrienne. A big thank you to her amazing at-home care team who kept Dr. Sutherland comfortable, Dr. Shamim Taherzadeh, and a caring and wonderful PSW team.

If you wish, please make donations in her memory to support the Wabano Centre, Ottawa; the First United Church, Ottawa; and the NDP.

A celebration of her life will be held later in the year.