Article from the Chronicle Journal (Page A10) Sunday, June 19, 2005
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Over the past 70 years, psychiatric health care has changed beyond all recognition, and the Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital has changed accordingly in that time.

When I first heard about St. Joseph’s Care Group’s plan to publish a history of an institution that’s changed and adapted so greatly over 70 years, I was pleased that one part of Thunder Bay District’s history was to be documented and made available to the public. When I heard that Peter Raffo would be writing the history, I knew the project was in good hands. His research and writing skills have made this book a useful, interesting and well written volume.

As much as he deserves congratulations for his work, so should thanks go to the St. Joseph’s Care Group committee that saw this project through from beginning to end. Together, they personify the understanding that a hospital or a business or an institution deserves a biography as much as any person, and they’ve made this history of a healing institution possible.

It all began on March 1, 1936, when almost two years of planning showed up in the form of a special train car’s arrival in Fort William. There were 12 patients, 12 male attendants, two nurses, a cook and a doctor aboard. They made their way to what had been a prison farm on the Scott Highway. There they found nothing prepared for their arrival. To quote Hilda (Kamstra) Green, one of the young nurses whose work was bringing her back to the area where she grew up, “It was incredibly dirty, poorly heated, not enough bathing facilities or hot water, poorly equipped kitchen and dining room. It took three months of cleaning, painting and renovating before we could admit any new patients.”

From those humble beginnings, an institution was born, though its name changed often enough over the years, from Ontario Hospital, Fort William through Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital, to today’s St. Joseph’s Care Group.

Raffo has done a remarkable job of using personal reminiscences from staff, patients, and family members, combined with photos and documents, to show how changes occur over time. For Instance, the first patients were referred to as “inmates” and only gradually came to be termed patients, then clients, then consumers of health care. His care in tracing changing attitudes means that this book does more than document the history of an institution; it traces the changes in psychiatric health care and the changes in attitude on the part of the community that supports a psychiatric hospital.

His accomplishments in tracing the history of buildings, enabling legislation, treatments, staffing, and the changes in provision of care make this a valuable book for different types of readers. It serves as much as a reflection of the changing face of psychiatric health care as it does as a history of one institution.

Raffo had to include a great deal of historical background to explain changes or delays at the hospital, and he’s managed to weave it all together smoothly and beautifully. This is a great example of how extensive research, properly organized, creates a lively narrative in the hands of a good-writer.

The book is available at Northern Woman’s Book Store.