The Montreal General Hospital (MGH) (French: Hôpital général de Montréal) is a hospital in Montreal, Quebec, Canada established in the years 1818–1820. The hospital received its charter in 1823. It is currently part of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) and is located on Mount Royal, at the intersection of Pine Avenue (Avenue des Pins) and Côte-des-Neiges Road. It has six pavilions: A, B, C, D, E and Livingston (L); plus a research centre in a separate building next to the L pavilion.
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The first MGH was built at the corner of Craig Street (today St. Antoine) and St. Lawrence Boulevard and only had 24 beds. Having outgrown this space, it moved to a new 72-bed building on Dorchester Boulevard (now René-Lévesque) between St. Dominique and De Bullion Streets; today this facility is a long-term care centre. In 1924, the hospital merged with the Western General Hospital (currently the D & E wings of the former Montreal Children's Hospital) building at the corner of Tupper Street and Atwater Avenue. The current location was opened on October 4, 1955, by Mary, Princess Royal and Countess of Harewood.
The MGH has been designated by the Quebec government as one of three Level I trauma centres in the province, the others being the Hôpital du Sacré-Cœur de Montréal and Hôpital de l'Enfant-Jésus in Quebec City.[1]
The MGH has been affiliated with McGill since 1832 and was one of the first teaching hospitals.
In 2019, Newsweek ranked the hospital 6th in Canada and 2nd in Quebec.[2]
Fund-raising to establish an English hospital in Montreal was undertaken in the years 1818-1820 after an initial petition for a new public hospital was accidentally denied by the lowest level of the colonial government of Lower Canada at the time, the House of Assembly.[3] The growing needs of the English-speaking population led to several charities, among them the Female Benevolent Society of Montreal and the Society for the Relief of Immigrants, to ask for help in building a new hospital. At this time, Montreal had two hospitals: the Grey Nuns' Hopital General and the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal).
In 1819 enough money had been received to lease a building on Craig Street to accommodate 24 patients and this small hospital opened on May 1, 1819. By 1820 enough money had been subscribed to purchase property on Dorchester and St Dominique streets. The cornerstone of the new Montreal General Hospital was laid in 1821 and the 72-bed hospital building opened in 1822. The hospital received its first charter in 1823.
Famous Montreal beer-brewer John Molson of "Molson's beer" (founded in 1786 and still sold to this day under the name "Molson Canadian Lager") and his three sons John Jr., Thomas, and William contributed to the hospital financially through the purchasing of the Dorchester Street lot, the construction of the main building itself, and physically - with John Molson being the presenter of the initial petition to the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada (after being sick and seeking hospital care himself, becoming personally invested) to create a new public hospital in Montreal in 1820, however the petition would be denied only because of a procedural error. Therefore the Montreal General would become a privately-funded institution.[4]
At the same time four Edinburgh-trained physicians Andrew Fernando Holmes, William Robertson, William Caldwell and John Stephenson were working to establish medical teaching in Montreal. They founded the Montreal Medical Institution in 1823 as a teaching unit of the hospital. In 1829 the Institution became part of McGill University, then known as McGill College. It was McGill's first faculty and Canada's first faculty of medicine.
On May 30, 1955, the Montreal General Hospital moved to its present location near Mount Royal on Cedar Avenue, at the corner of Côte-des-Neiges Road and one block north of Pine Avenue.
