Hospital Name: Herzl Hospital and Dispensary (1912-1948)
Address: 5780 rue Decelles (1965-); 4652 Jeanne Mance Street (1936-1965)
MUC Location: Montréal
Religious Affiliation: Jewish
Architect: Unknown
Incorporation Date: February 1914
Architectural Notes: The Dispensary's facilities on St. Dominique street included examining and consultation rooms, a pharmacy, operating and recovery rooms.
The facilities on St. Urbain street consisted of a board room, an office, a pharmacy, three examination rooms, two recovery rooms, an equipment amphitheatre, a surgical operating room and a waiting room.
In 1936 the Dispensary moved into a house on Jeanne Mance street, which was renovated to meet the needs of the hospital.
In June 1965, the Health Centre moved into a lowrise office building on Decelles Avenue. This more modern building provided the Centre with 6000 square feet, and a closer proximity to the Jewish community, which had been moving westward.
General Notes: The original location of the Herzl Dispensary, which opened June 2 1912, was a small two-story house on St. Dominique street , in the Jewish immigrant ghetto. The Dispensary's purpose was twofold: it was created in order to provide health care to the Jewish community, but also to provide a place where Jewish doctors, who were often rejected from other institutions due to anti-semitism, could complete their training. The Dispensary was named after Theodore Herzl, the father of modern zionism. The doctors at the Dispensary were all unpaid volunteers who were "guided by a sense of idealism growing out of the concept of noblesse oblige: the duty of the well-off to care for the less fortunate." (Regenstreif, p.8) In May of 1914, the Dispensary moved into a three-storey building on St. Urbain street. The Dispensary was closed temporarily in 1918 due to a worldwide influenza epidemic. In 1923, the physicians involved in the Dispensary founded the Montreal Clinical Society, which had its first meeting on April 25, 1923. This society promoted the establishment of a Jewish general hospital, and was instrumental in the creation of the Montreal Jewish General Hospital, which opened in 1934. The Dispensary was also central to the creation of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of Montreal, the forerunner of the modern Federation-CJA. Due to the opening of the Jewish General Hospital, the Herzl Dispensary began to lose patients, and was forced to reorganize. In April 1941, the Dispensary opened the Herzl Health Centre, which was open in the afternoons and focused on preventative medicine. It was community-oriented, and established health education programs and social service programs promoting hygiene and nutrition. The Herzl Dispensary was closed on June 30, 1948, however, the Health Centre remained open. In the 1960's, the Health Centre began focussing on psychological and emotional health, and developed a number of psychiatyric services, both alone and in conjuction with the Jewish General Hospital. In 1973, the Health Centre joined with the Jewish General Hospital to form the Herzl Family Practice Centre.
Bibliography: Regenstreif, Michael.Our History of Family Medicine 1912-1994, The Herzl Family Practice Centre and Department of Family Medicine of the Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital. Montreal: Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital, 1994.