Request from the Staff of the Radium Institute Asking for Dr. Gendreau’s Dismissal

Request from the Radium Institute’s staff to the Board of Directors, 1946. In their request, the staff of the Institute testify to the wrongs of Doctor Gendreau, starting with his high salary despite rarely working at the Institute. The staff also reports on the doctor’s multiple absences.

WHEREAS Dr. J. E. Gendreau, director of the Radium Institute, has cost over $50,000.00 annually to the institution for these past few years: […]

WHEREAS despite this exorbitant salary, Dr. Gendreau has shown a complete carelessness that has manifested both in the financial administration and the medical organization of the institution; […]

WHEREAS Dr. Gendreau’s contribution to the medical work performed at the Radium Institute is currently null, and has been now for over fifteen years. Not a single member of the hospital staff has ever seen Dr. Gendreau conduct a medical examination or treatment on any patient. All of his peers who have seen Dr. Gendreau being formally asked to confirm or rule out a diagnosis believe him to be totally incapable of doing so. The question of Dr. Gendreau’s medical qualifications is moot, since Dr. Gendreau, to the best of our knowledge, has never once practised medicine.

WHEREAS Dr. Gendreau is absent for around six months a year, and that his work schedule, on the days when he is present at the hospital, is from noon to 1 p.m.; […]

WHEREAS the staff of the Radium Institute has been until now the worst paid among all similar institutions, while its director is continuing to receive the highest salary of any medical professional in Canada.

WHEREAS Dr. Gendreau never cared about the working conditions of his staff, or the creation of a pension fund for its aging employees; 

WHEREAS Dr. Gendreau has been completely excluded from any administrative duties for the past eight months, and that the Institute has managed without him to reduce spending and raise revenue in order to be able to pay back half of the director’s total accrued debt of $95,000.00. […]

AND WHEREAS the current state of things threatens to linger on and turn into a full-blown scandal, we the undersigned, doctors, nurses and employees of the Radium Institute, formally request the board of directors that Dr. Gendreau be cut from the hospital’s personnel.