Provincial Hospital for the Insane Ponoka

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Provincial Hospital for the Insane Ponoka
Established 1911
Opened 1912
Current Status Active
Building Style Cottage Plan
Location Ponoka, AB
Alternate Names
  • Hospital for the Insane, Ponoka
  • Ponoka Mental Hospital
  • Alberta Hospital Ponoka
  • Centennial Centre for Mental Health and Brain Injury (current)



History

Alberta's first "mental" hospital as it was then called, opened in 1911 just outside Ponoka, on the Battle River. While the first matron was an English-trained graduate nurse, her staff included only a few trained nurses, and certainly with very little knowledge of psychiatric nursing. When Dr. Baragar was appointed Acting Superintendent of the hospital, he established a nursing school.

Dr. Baragar was a psychiatrist from Brandon Mental Hospital and had a keen interest in training nurses in the specific needs of psychiatric patients--he felt strongly that the nursing care of "the complexities of the mind" should be a profession in its own right. He felt that the care of physical illness would still be a part of such a profession, and even that all nurses should have some understanding of those complexities of the mind.

Images of Central State Hospital

Main Image Gallery: Provincial Hospital for the Insane Ponoka