Communal Solidarity by Ross Arthur;

Author:Ross, Arthur;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Manitoba Press
Published: 2019-02-18T22:09:58+00:00

22. Mount Carmel Clinic, Pritchard Avenue, 1929–1929.

The clinic consisted of a reception area, two examining rooms, and a pharmacy. Its mandate was to treat all members of the Jewish community who could not afford to pay for medical care. Assisted by a full-time nurse, eight physicians—including Oscar Margolese, a physician with twenty years of experience, and H. Herschman, who both belonged to the Jewish Medical Society, W. Heringer, and a number of recent graduates of the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Medicine—volunteered their services. Joseph Wilder, who persuaded the National Drug Company to donate a supply of medicine, and a team of seven pharmacists filled prescriptions free of charge. Within months of opening, the clinic also began to distribute free eyeglasses. In its first three and a half months, the clinic treated over 750 patients, including twenty-five in their homes. Committed to the “principle of free, friendly treatment without the taint of ‘charity-giving,’” the clinic welcomed all patients “not in a position to pay for private medical attention.”181 Its founders quickly demonstrated that their critics had misjudged the willingness of members of the Jewish community to support a facility that provided free medical care; between September and March 1926, they raised nearly $6,000. The clinic was not only free of debt but also had a cash reserve of almost $1,000.182

The composition of the Mount Carmel Clinic’s board of directors reflected its close relationship with the Jewish community’s mutual aid societies. The clinic’s mandate to provide free medical care was closely aligned with the societies’ commitment to the principles of mutual aid. Leaders of the Hebrew Sick Benefit Association and a number of other mutual aid societies not only had been instrumental in establishing the committee that had founded the clinic but they also had drawn on their financial reserves to make donations and encouraged their members to participate in fundraising.183 In addition to “other persons” who could be elected at annual general meetings, of the twenty-eight communal organizations entitled to appoint two delegates to the board of directors, twenty were mutual aid societies, and two were mutual aid society Ladies’ Auxiliaries.184 To broaden its support in the Jewish community, shortly after the clinic opened, a group of women who had founded the clinic established a Ladies’ Auxiliary that organized annual tag days and other fundraising events.185

By the spring of 1926, the clinic’s small staff of volunteer physicians began to experience difficulty coping with the steady stream of patients seeking treatment.186 Sensing that numerous editorials, articles, and personal testimonials in the Israelite Press praising Mount Carmel and the dedication of its medical staff might have persuaded many of the physicians who had publicly refused to support plans to establish a clinic to reconsider, the clinic’s founders took steps to persuade them to volunteer.187 Dr. Oscar Margolese, a founding member of the Jewish Medical Society, was able to reassure his colleagues that the clinic was operating efficiently and providing high-quality medical care. In addition, physicians and pharmacists were guaranteed a role in management of the clinic.

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