National Truth and Reconciliation Day on Island Park Drive

Remembering the Royal Ottawa “San” and the Patients Who Never Came Home

On September 30, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation invites us to face difficult local histories—not only the residential school system, but also the medical segregation and long separations that Indigenous families endured during Canada’s tuberculosis (TB) era.

Here on Island Park Drive, just south along Carling Avenue, the Royal Ottawa campus sits on the grounds of what was once the Lady Grey Hospital—better known to generations of people in Ottawa as the Royal Ottawa Sanatorium, or simply “the San.”

A brief history of “the San”

The Lady Grey Hospital admitted its first TB patient in February 1910. Over the next six decades, more than 11,000 people from across Eastern Ontario were hospitalized there; average stays ran many months, sometimes years. The last TB ward closed in 1970, and the institution was renamed the Royal Ottawa Hospital as its mandate shifted to mental health.

Local archival work captures how total rest cures, children’s preventoria, and expanding ward blocks reshaped the campus through the 1910s–1950s—while patients endured long isolation from family and community. As historian Roger Power observed in The Story of the Royal Ottawa Hospital (1985), for some, sanatorium life consumed “as much as half a normal lifetime.”

Indigenous patients and long separations

National evidence shows that throughout the 1930s–1960s, First Nations people were routinely sent south to "the San." for extended periods—often far from home—and some never returned. These displacements broke family ties disrupted language and culture, and compounded grief. While the Royal Ottawa served all Eastern Ontario (which includes Algonquin Anishinaabe communities), this broader pattern is essential context for understanding who was likely among its patients. (theroyal.ca)

That legacy is increasingly acknowledged: Canada has recently moved toward settlements with survivors of the segregated “Indian hospitals” system, recognizing harm tied to isolation, neglect, and abuse.

Voices and records

Personal accounts help ground the story here in Ottawa. Clara’s Rib—a memoir by Anne Raina based on her sister’s diaries—chronicles growing up inside the Royal Ottawa Sanatorium from the 1930s to the 1950s, bringing to life the wards, rituals, friendships, and losses behind the statistics. It’s a powerful local read for Truth and Reconciliation Day.

For those who want to dig deeper, the City of Ottawa Archives features aerials and campus histories, including notes on the Lady Grey building, the Red Cross Preventorium for children, and the mid-century Carmichael Infirmary—reminders that the vanished brick-and-stone complex once dominated this stretch of Carling. (documents.ottawa.ca)

Commemoration, learning, and action

Learn the timeline on site. Review The Royal’s official history to situate the TB era within today’s mental-health mandate. Consider how the campus evolved—and what stories the new buildings can’t visibly tell. (theroyal.ca)

Read a local firsthand account. Clara’s Rib offers a patient-level window into daily life at the San. Book clubs or heritage walks can pair excerpts with a visit to the area.

Acknowledge who was sent here. When we say “patients from Eastern Ontario,” we should also recognize Indigenous families whose loved ones were hospitalized far from home—part of a wider national pattern that Truth and Reconciliation asks us to name. (Canada.ca)

Support records and remembrance. Encourage continued archival work and community-led remembrance projects (markers, story-gathering, or oral histories) so families can find names, dates, and places connected to the San. Backgrounders from LAC and public-health sources offer starting points. (Canada.ca)

This Truth and Reconciliation Day, let’s remember that our neighbourhood’s landscape holds layers of caregiving—and harm. By listening to survivors, reading local histories, and making space for commemoration, Island Park Drive residents can help ensure those who were sent to the San, especially those who never made it home, are not forgotten.

Selected sources: The Royal’s official history; Roger Power’s The Story of the Royal Ottawa Hospital (as quoted by City of Ottawa Archives); Anne Raina’s Clara’s Rib; Government of Canada TB standards and LAC backgrounders Hill Time 2023. Sanatoriuns and Reconcilliation. Ottawa Archives. Lady Grey Hopsital Annual Reports 1920-42.