ADVENTURES IN COOKING 69

Over the Years in Social Welfare
By JuL1A MULLIGAN, CONVENER

The pioneer work of the Women’s Institutes is truly emphasized in
their own communities. Establishing schools and getting water piped into
them, buying playground equipment and first aid kits, helping the sick and
the needy was only part of their work.

Following their long list of war services in both wars, the Women’s
Institutes set up home nursing and first aid classes. Quilt making was
indeed a pioneer effort, with one Institute making 312 comforters, another
200 and still another 84. Showing the community spirit, one secretary writes,
“We made a quilt for a needy family and had a social afternoon when we
presented it (the afternoon was more vital than the quilt).”

Hospital wards were furnished and a great deal of hospital equipment
bought. The practice of adopting lonely children in hospitals far from
home has been a general effort. Homes for the aged have been started on
the way and support given to keep them going. Rest rooms have been fitted
up in towns to provide a place for mothers to rest and care for their babies.

It is interesting to note that the Victorian Order of Nurses was estab-
lished in Canada in 1897, the same year as the first Women’s Institute at
Stoney Creek, Ontario. ‘The work of this Order was supported by the
Women’s Institutes and a rural nursing service established in Saanich in
1917. The Saanich Health Centre, opened in 1918, was largely due to the
efforts of Mrs. V. S. McLachlan, former Superintendent of British Columbia
Women’s Institutes.

The W. I. in rural districts took over the responsibility of bringing
mother and nurses together, helping with baby clinics and T.B. mobile
clinics. Due to the insistence of the Women’s Institutes, dental clinics were
set up by the Department of Health in 1935 to 1939.

Special efforts in the line of Social Welfare have resulted in two very
important institutions, the Queen Alexandra Solarium on Vancouver Island
and the Crippled Children’s Hospital at Vancouver. In 1922 the Hornby
Island Women’s Institute wrote to Mrs. McLachlan to appeal for help for a
little crippled girl called Othoa Scott. Mrs. McLachlan first secured the help
of the Central Park Women’s Institute under the leadership of Mrs. Bailey
and raised money to place this child in the Vancouver General Hospital.
Seeing a further need, they also opened an office-sized clinic in down town
Vancouver from which patients were referred to other hospitals. In 1924
this clinic was incorporated under the name of the Women’s Institute
Hospital Association for Crippled Children. In 1927 the first Hospital was
opened, a rented three-storey residence in Marpole with a 16-bed capacity.
By March Ist the W. I.’s had raised $7,864.00 for this cause. In 1932 the
name was changed to Crippled Children’s Hospital and the next year the
original wing of the present building was constructed. Later the name was
changed to Children’s Hospital and from that time it has been a general
hospital for children’s disabilities of every type.