Health care and nursing, both formal and informal, have a long and colourful past in Bytown (later Ottawa). Individuals and organizations affected and saved countless lives. Wives of canal workers nursed their injured husbands. Early doctors cared for patients, including an ailing Lieutenant-Colonel John By. Nuns risked deadly diseases to assist new immigrants. Trained nurses led hospital wards in times of peace and war.
Capital Healers explores this history through a series of biographical and institutional sketches, and sheds light on the people, organizations, and events that helped shape health care in Ottawa from time immemorial, through the construction of the Rideau Canal and the early days of Bytown, to the opening of the Ottawa Civic Hospital in 1924. This early history laid the foundation for Ottawa becoming home today to some of the nation’s leading health care institutions.
