Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal
The Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal, founded in 1639, is the oldest hospital in Montreal, Quebec. Since 1996 it has been one of the three hospitals making up the Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CHUM).
"Hôtel-dieu," literally "hostel of God," is an archaic French term for hospital, referring to the origins of hospitals as religious institutions.
History
The origins of the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal date to the arrival in 1642 of Paul Chomedey and a small party of French settlers on the Island of Montreal to found the French colony of Ville-Marie. Among them was Jeanne Mance, the first nurse in New France. She founded the hospital on October 8, 1645, as confirmed by letters patent of Louis XIV of France in April 1669.
In addition to returning to France to seek financial support for the hospital, in 1657 Mance recruited three sisters of the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph (Religieuses hospitalières de Saint-Joseph) order of nuns to serve with her as staff. Their order was founded in 1636 by a layman, Jérôme Le Royer de la Dauversière, along with Mother Marie de la Fere, in La Fleche, France. Guillaume Bailly, a Sulpician missionary, is credited with drawing up the plans for the stone structure that was built in 1688.
