
“In
the era before antibiotics, contracting tuberculosis was devastating.
Victims often
spent many months in a sanatorium suffering
through long recoveries or painful deaths.
In
spite of their dire condition, the
Department of Soldiers’ Civil Re-Establishment
arranged a series of
vocational training workshops for tuberculous veterans. The
goal was to give them
“the physical and mental stimulation of occupational therapy and to
make ‘taking the cure’ [i.e.,
tuberculosis
treatment] easier, while providing limited industrial re-education.”
The
results were encouraging. Instances of drunkenness and
insubordination were nearly eliminated, while treatment completion
rates rose
from sixty-six to nearly one hundred percent.
During
this transitional period several high-profile
officials
visited Speedwell. The
Prince of Wales stopped by on 21 October 1919 during his visit to
Guelph where, it was reported, he toured the whole hospital and shook
hands wit nearly all of the veterans. In
February of the following year, General Sir Arthur Currie traveled
from Ottawa with the Honourable Hugh Guthrie, Minister of Militia and
Guelph Member of Parliament, to make a “visit of inspection” to
Speedwell Hospital.
It
is unclear if representatives from the Red Cross met with Guthrie
during this visit, but the president of the Guelph branch, Edith
Crowe, contacted Guthrie’s office
the following month. Crowe wanted Guthrie to understand that
conditions at Speedwell were deteriorating daily, and the hospital
presented to visiting dignitaries did not represent patients’ daily
experiences:
I
venture to say that we women [of the Red Cross Society] know more of
the seething discontent out there than any official
in the place. Here is one of dozens of complaints. In the bitterest
of the cold weather an order came through from Ottawa that all heat
was to be turned off in the T.B. Wards. Do you know that the water
froze in the stone hot water bottles, and the bottles burst in their
beds, leaving ice at the men’s feet? Army blankets are heavy but
there is not much warmth in them, and these poor fellows have
suffered
much from this cold this winter. I am not sure how far your
jurisdiction extends, but I know that what you can do will be done.
Crowe’s
complaint was immediately forwarded to Lougheed’s office, but there
was no time to dispatch the DSCR’s medical director to investigate.
In addition to
notifying officials
in Ottawa, Crowe alerted her superior. The Chairman of
the Canadian Red Cross Society, Lieutenant-Colonel Noel G.L.
Marshall, wrote Lougheed that same day regarding numerous complaints,
some from “very direct sources,” received by the Red Cross about
Speedwell Hospital. The
chairman wanted to assure Lougheed that, despite
appeals
for the Red Cross to intervene, there would be no meddling in
Speedwell’s affairs
beyond his organization’s unconditional assistance.
The
situation deteriorated further a few weeks later when Speedwell’s
nursing staff
walked off the job. The
medical director received an urgent letter from Speedwell’s medical
superintendent on 12 May 1920 regarding a bitter dispute between the
dietitians and nursing staff
over
the preparation and delivery of special dietary meals to the
patients.
Standard
practice within DSCR hospitals placed all medical staff (including nurses and dietitians) under the authority of an in-house
Medical Superintendent. The
superintendent reported to a regional Unit Medical Director who, in
turn, reported to the Director of Medical Services in Ottawa.
Speedwell was different;
the dietitians took orders directly from Assistant Director Black.
The
dietitians claimed their duty was limited to preparing special
dietary meals and that responsibility for delivering those meals to
the patient’s bedside rested with the nurses. The
nurses argued their time was better spent on the ward with their
patients rather than in the kitchen with their meals. “We realized
it was not our work,” said Miss A. Hanlan, one of the nurses on
strike, “[t]he dietitians are supposed to be there serving the
trays, but it is bad enough for the nurses to
have to serve the trays without the dietitians standing by watching
them.”
The
nurses told the Toronto
Evening Telegram that
Speedwell’s chief dietitian, Miss Mabel Beatty, was Black’s
sister-in-law,
and that Beatty had usurped control from Speedwell’s head nurse,
Miss Maud Wald, with the support of Black’s administration.
The
nurses were justifiably concerned. A patient in another DSCR hospital
who had underwent surgery nearly died when he ingested apple pie
shortly afterwards,
mistakenly delivered by an orderly while the attendant nurse was in
the diet kitchen.
Nevertheless,
Black objected to the nurses’ demands, arguing that four assistant
dietitians would need to be hired for each of Speedwell’s special
diet kitchens, which the hospital could not afford.
The
issue went to the Director of
Medical Services, Colonel E.G. Davis, who confirmed
the nurses were responsible for ensuring “her patient receives the
proper diet, one which has been prescribed for him; also to supervise
the distribution of trays by the Orderlies on duty in her ward but
the actual preparation of foods, the placing of food on trays in the
diet kitchen is certainly not part of her duty.”
The
medical director estimated
that delivering meals to patients could be done by kitchen maids
under the supervision of Speedwell’s existing dietitian
staff.
These
conflicts
indicate that the deeper issue at Speedwell was its system of dual
administrative control shared between civilians and military-medical
personnel within the same hospital. Colonel Davis acknowledged this
in his report to the deputy minister: “the
nurses and medical men [at Speedwell], rightly or wrongly, resent the
fact of having a layman in charge of medical arrangements resulting
in lack of co-operation and constant bickering.”
Black
was originally granted vast authority in 1917 as Director of
Industries in order to streamline vocational training with medical
treatment. After
Speedwell’s transition to long-term convalescence care, however,
Black’s decisions were increasingly viewed by not only veterans but
also medical staff as arbitrary, unqualified,
and controversial.
At
least two tuberculous patients died
as the nurses’ strike wore on. Thomas Quin,
who served as a sapper with the Black Watch in France, came to Canada after
the war to carry out his convalescence closer to his mother, who
resided in Toronto. Quin
passed away on 29 June 1920 at the age of nineteen.
Another
patient named McNamara had to plaster newspaper sheets across the
seeping limestone walls
of his cell in an effort
to “keep the damp off him.” McNamara also died during the strike.
The
following week, with the support of the Great War Veterans
Association, the nurses reported the scandal to the press. Black
announced his resignation the same day. He accepted an offer
to manage the H.H. Robertson Company
of Sarnia, manufacturers of construction materials, but insisted his
resignation had “nothing whatever” to do with the dismissal of
eighteen nurses from
his staff.
Colonel
E.G. Shannon, an officer
who served overseas with the 50th
Battalion, was Black’s successor. Shannon’s appointment suggests
that DSCR officials
were beginning to respond to veterans’ objections to civilian
authority.
The
Toronto
Evening Telegram published
a series of articles on the scandalous state of affairs
at Speedwell based on the testimony of nurses and patients. There
were reports of rusty hypodermic needles being sterilized in tin cans
due to shortages of medical supplies. Others condemned the hospital’s
continued use of so-called “private wards” which were
half-converted prison cells.
William
Barden, a patient of Speedwell’s tuberculosis ward for the past
fourteen months, recounted how a group of patients had approached the
medical superintendent, Dr. G.N. Urie, requesting the windows be
cleaned, which the Telegram
described
as “filthy
and scarcely up to the standard expected in a military hospital.”
The
doctor allegedly refused the patients’ request because the cost of
window washing, around $800, was considered too high. On another
occasion, Dr. Urie was presented with a petition signed by 150
patients requested conditions improve immediately at Speedwell. The
petition was allegedly torn up and the petitioner kicked out of Dr.
Urie’s office.
The
medical superintendent disputed all charges. Dr. Urie’s actions
were consistent, however, with a hospital administration that was
constrained by inadequate funding but also indifferent
to veterans’
concerns.
The
Ontario government released its own report in August. The
bombshell report, commissioned
by Major G.L. Drew, Vocational Officer
for the Provincial Secretary’s Department, led Drew to conclude the
situation at Speedwell “came far short of the service that I
considered patients should receive at the hands of the Department.”
Frustrated
that his repeated allegations to DSCR officials
had been ignored, Drew had ordered J.J. Bayliss, from the Mountain
Sanatorium in Hamilton, to visit Guelph and investigate the
Telegram’s
accusations.
“I
attach this
report,” Drew told the DSCR, “[t]he results are far from
satisfactory to say the least.” In his cover letter, dated 2 August
1920, Bayliss declared that “[…] making a report on Speedwell
Hospital was about the most difficult
thing I ever had to do.”
Bayliss
confided
to Drew:
the
evils of this place are so obvious, that to mention some of them
would only cast a reflection
on certain men who are doing their best, and might possibly let out
those men who deserve blame. There is no doubt whatever, that some men
at Speedwell have done their best in every way for the patients, nor
is there any doubt, that others fell far short of their best, and
knowingly allowed a situation to develop that has caused a great deal
of anxiety and trouble for the Department.
Bayliss’s
report is remarkable for its historical interrogation of the
decisions that had been made during the uncertainty of wartime. “the
root of the trouble is much deeper than any question of
administration,” Bayliss concluded.
His
report did not discuss the nurses’ strike in great detail, nor did
it criticize the staff.
Doing
so ignored the deeper issue rooted in the initial transference of the
Ontario Reformatory to the Military Hospital Commission in 1917. Bayliss recalled the remarks
of a patient at Mountain Sanatorium who, when told of his impending
transfer to Speedwell, had responded that “[t]he place is a prison,
and you can’t change it. Surely we deserve something
better than a jail.”
Bayliss
admitted he thought the patient was exaggerating. What he discovered
was Speedwell had never fully transitioned into a proper veterans’
hospital after 1917, with many necessary improvements never materializing.
While
Speedwell was initially supported by many of the leading physicians
across Canada, “the spirit of their recommendations seems to have
been almost ignored.”
It
required more than fresh paint and curtains covering Speedwell’s
iron bars to make the former prison suitable for convalescent care.
By failing to undertake necessary improvements, Speedwell Hospital,
in the eyes of the superintendent of Mountain Sanatorium, remained a
prison.
The
persistence of a prison-like atmosphere had significant
psychological implications
for the patients at Speedwell. During previous outbreaks of tuberculosis in Canada, it was not unusual for the public to go
through fits of phthisiphobia:
a
fear of tuberculosis and its sufferers.
Demands
were made for the establishment of so-called “prison colonies” to
concentrate tuberculous patients during treatment. “[I]n such a
colony,” claimed Bayliss, “the discipline, while not as strict as
that of an ordinary prison, would still be strict enough to enforce
obedience on the part of a patient for the protection of the public
at large […] Speedwell fitted
the idea exactly.”
Bayliss
was certain the veterans bitterly resented being “imprisoned” due
to an illness contracted while fighting
overseas.
The
former prison cells, known a private wards, were tolerable during
summer months but insufferable
during the winter. “The
condition of a patient in a small cell with solid stone walls at such
a time can be more easily imagined than described,”
Bayliss reported, “especially if the window and door are closed for
the sake of comfort.” Making matters worse, a few prison cells in
its underground tunnel system were maintained for veterans who “acted
up a little.”
Bayliss
concluded that Speedwell “[lacked] the many little things for the
patients’ comfort which are to be found in the modern Sanatorium
and without which treatment would become unbearable.”
In
his opinion the tubercular patients were suffering.
By
the time Bayliss’ report reached the desk of the DSCR’s deputy
minister on 21 August 1920, the Tuberculous Board of Consultants was
concluding its own investigation into Speedwell.
The
fall of 1920 marked the denouement for Speedwell Hospital. Colonel
Davis informed the Unit Medical Director in late August that all
tuberculous patients were to be removed from Speedwell and dispersed
to other sanatoria within the DSCR.
On
28 September, The
Globe reported
that Speedwell would be closed entirely.
The
next day, by Order-in-Council #P.C. 2338, the DSCR was ordered to
vacate the hospital and return the former Ontario Reformatory back to
the province as quickly as possible.
Patients
were evacuated completely by 15 November 1920 and most of the
administration was transferred to the new DSCR hospital in London.
The
remaining employees were laid off at the end of year.
On
24 January 1921, after
nearly five
years, the Province of Ontario resumed complete control of the
Ontario Reformatory at Guelph. During that five-year
period, Speedwell’s administration was the subject of multiple
investigations, conducted by a range of organizations, including the
Provincial Secretary’s Office
of Ontario,
the
Chief Accountant of the DSCR,
the
Board of Tuberculosis Consultants, the Toronto
Evening Telegram, the
Canadian Red Cross,
and
the Department of Justice.
Such
was the ignominious end to the noble
experiment in soldiers’ civil re-establishment that was Speedwell
Hospital. What followed was a thorny and prolonged dispute between
Ontario and the DSCR that dragged on for a decade.
A Board
of Adjustment to negotiate Speedwell’s return was convened in
November 1920, when a detailed inventory of alterations and
installations made to the hospital by the DSCR was submitted. It
revealed that, while the nurses’ quarters remained unchanged since
1917, the superintendent’s residence where George Black lived now
boasted a three-story extension, including a garage at ground level
and sun rooms on the second and third floors.
Despite
initial progress toward a settlement, the Board was unable to reach
an agreement. After
two years the dispute was referred to the Department of Justice.
Each
party made six-figure
claims against the other for unpaid expenses and resolution was
further delayed. On 29 January 1931, eleven years after
Speedwell’s return to the province, the DSCR’s long-serving
Assistant Deputy Minister, Ernest Scammell, now Secretary of the
Department of Pensions and National Health, met with the provincial
secretary in Toronto, where the dispute was finally
settled.
Speedwell’s
greatest strengths as an institution— its farms, industries, and
work shops—were little unrealized by a cost-conscious
bureaucracy lacking the will to utilize them. The
inmates who preceded the veterans at Speedwell received vocational
training in an array of trades while building the prison and later
working in its various industries. These
industries, however, were obliged by the federal-provincial
agreement of 1917 to remain efficient
and productive in order to meet
the
continuing needs of the province’s customers. This
obligation eventually led administrators to return Speedwell’s
unprofitable
industries to provincial control, or
substitute vocational trainees for paid labourers, essentially
ruining Speedwell’s prospect of becoming Canada’s “chief
educational centre” in the soldier re-establishment program. The
fact that provincial demands ultimately prevailed is perhaps
unsurprising considering many of the MHC’s original decision-makers
had close ties to the Provincial Secretary’s Department. In the
end, inmates of the Ontario Reformatory received better vocational
training
than Canadian veterans.”
– Brook Durham, “The place is a prison, and you can’t change it”: Rehabilitation, Retraining, and Soldiers’ Re-Establishment at Speedwell Military Hospital, Guelph, 1911-1921.” Ontario History, 109(2), fall 2017. pp. 204-211.
Photo is: “Speedwell [Hospital] Convalescent Ward, [Department of Soldiers Civil Re-Establishment, c. 1918].” Credit: Peake & Whittingham / Library and Archives Canada / PA-068096.
Read Full Post »