Kingston General Hospital

Kingston General Hospital
Location in Ontario
Geography
Location	76 Stuart Street, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Coordinates	44°13′27″N 076°29′35″W / 44.22417°N 76.49306°W / 44.22417; -76.49306 (Kingston General Hospital)
Organization
Care system	Public Medicare (OHIP)
Hospital type	Acute care
Affiliated university	Queen's School of Medicine
Services
Emergency department	Yes
Helipad	TC LID: CPJ7
History
Founded	1835
Links
Website	http://www.kgh.on.ca/
Lists	Hospitals in Canada

The Kingston General Hospital (KGH) is an acute-care teaching hospital affiliated with Queen's University located in Kingston, Ontario. Along with Hotel Dieu Hospital and Providence Care, the hospital is a partner within Kingston's university hospitals in the Southeast LHIN, delivering health care, conducting research and training health care professionals.

KGH is oldest public hospital in Canada still in operation with most of its buildings intact. Architecturally reflecting the evolution of health care in the 19th and 20th centuries, KGH was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1995.

In 1832 an Act of Parliament named a commission to "superintend and manage the erection and completion of a hospital in or near the town of Kingston". In 1835 the first building was completed on the site where KGH stands today, on land purchased from Archdeacon George O'Kill Stuart. The building, designed to accommodate 72 patients, remained unoccupied until three years later when the city had the money to purchase equipment and furnishings. In 1838 the hospital briefly housed its first patients, twenty wounded Americans taken prisoner in the Battle of the Windmill during the Rebellion of 1837.

When Kingston was named the capital of the Province of Canada in 1841 and the United Provinces required an unoccupied building to serve as the first house of Parliament, the hospital was chosen. Parliament met in the hospital from the time of the Union of the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada from 1841 until 1844 when the capital and parliament were moved to Montreal. In 1845, the building was returned to its original purpose and, thanks to the Female Benevolent Society, began its seasonal operation as a charitable institution.

The hospital grounds also held the remains of 1,400 Irish immigrants who had died in Kingston in fever sheds along the waterfront, during the typhus epidemic of 1847, while fleeing the Great Famine. Their remains were re-interred to the city's St. Mary's Cemetery in 1966.