Training of “Garde-Malades”

Black and white photograph of a round or octagonal room with windows on each wall and a high ceiling. The room is arranged in three-tiered stands. About twenty student nurses are seated at desk-chairs. They are wearing nursing uniforms. In the foreground, a woman in religious attire appears to be handling containers and pouring liquids.

Nursing classes at the Notre-Dame Hospital, 1930s

The institute’s “garde-malades” (caregivers) as their name suggested, were responsible for caring for the sick during their stay. They also aided doctors and radiologists in their work. In addition to a mandatory two-year university training course, many of them took refresher classes offered by the Canadian Association of Radiologists to cater to and understand the various issues specific to radiology and radium treatments. For instance, it was written that nurses Martinbault and Dalphond, “shared in Doctor Gendreau’s secrets about the power of radium.” For years, they manipulated radioactive rays alongside doctors.

Black and white photograph of a large classroom. Windows line the side walls, the door is in the center of the back wall, and an anatomy chart is displayed at the back. In the foreground, a woman in religious attire holds an open book. More than sixty students in nursing uniforms are seated at desk-chairs, taking notes.

Class at the Notre-Dame Hospital’s nursing school, 1950s

The nurses working at the institute were not all members of the Grey Nuns’ congregation. In fact, this trade became more secularized over the course of the 20th century. It was during this transition that the term “infirmière” (nurse) slowly replaced the now outdated “garde-malade.” Historian Yolande Cohen denotes that, as early as the 1930s, nuns were letting secular workers play an ever-larger role in the healthcare system, although they would still exert a strong influence in hospitals throughout the province. This process was part of the gradual secularization of nursing, which reached its peak during the 1970s.

The Grey Nuns at the Radium Institute Doctors and Treatments