museum

By the 1950s, the old Jepson Street hospital was lacking in beds and services to match the Niagara Falls community, as well as full accreditation.

Accreditation, being a process implemented by an Accreditation Board to ensure an even standard of care and efficiency, eluded them for 2 years before they secured it, and it became much easier to maintain as the City worked on building a new and more modern hospital – GNGH, which still serves the community today.

By 1950 it was clear that the Jepson Street location was inadequate. Services were limited to the amount of space available, and an update was necessary. A Greater Niagara Hospital Association was formed to bring together the region's medical needs, and again a site was chosen. This time it was Poplar Park at the intersection of Portage Road and North Street – the issue was, this site was already home to a playground and outdoor recreation area, which was left to the Township of Stamford by Sir Harry Oakes specifically for that purpose. Sir Oakes was passionate about sports and recreation, and before the City could move forward with a hospital on the site, they needed permission from his family.

Thankfully, permission was given with the agreement that the City would provide an alternate park as a replacement. In 1958, after a massive fundraising drive, the GNGH opened to the public with 239 beds and 44 bassinets (Fig 5, the new GNGH building shortly after construction finished). Equipment was updated for the times, staffing increased, and by 1967 the beds had gone up to 527 with new a pediatric wing, psychiatric wing, and intensive care unit being added.

The nurses’ training school was relocated, along with the hospital, to a new wing with 65 available spots (Fig 6, group photo of the Cataract Nursing Division in 1955). Gone were the days of a 6-month training period – by 1958 it was a three-year program. The Salvation Army took over the old Third Avenue building for their Eventide Home. By 1973 the training school ended and all nurses were required to attend an outside college program province-wide.

The Region of Niagara grew, encompassing more municipalities, and in 1999 five of the Region's hospitals – including GNGH - amalgamated into the Niagara Health System to better equalize the consistency and convenience of their care across sites. Today, cross-hospital care is extremely common and made easier by access to transportation and the unifying framework of the NHS.

Over 119 years, Niagara Falls has gone from a City with no hospital to being part of one of the biggest hospital systems in the province. While methods have changed – the Niagara Health System no longer accepts hind quarters of beef or whole chickens in exchange for surgeries, for example – what still holds true is that medicine of all types has evolved here to try to meet the needs of the people it serves.