Celebrating National Nursing Week!

Dear Colleagues,

Happy National Nursing Week!

This week is a special opportunity to recognize and celebrate our remarkable nurses for their unwavering dedication, compassionate care, and invaluable contributions.

The 2025 theme, The Power of Nurses to Transform Health, reflects the profound impact nurses have in shaping healthcare, driving innovation, and championing patient-centred care across the WCH community. Every day, our nurses transform lives — not only through the care they provide, but by training future healthcare professionals, leading pioneering research, advancing system-wide solutions, and so much more.

Nurses are at the heart of healthcare. You are often the first point of contact, the steady presence delivering care, and the trusted voice guiding patients and families through their health journeys. You are also the educators and researchers shaping a healthier future. Your expertise and leadership ensure not only the best possible care for our patients, but a stronger, more sustainable health system for all.

To mark the occasion, we’ve created a special video spotlighting members of our nursing team and what inspires them most about the work they do. We encourage you to watch and share it widely — it’s a powerful reminder of why our #TeamWCH nurses do what they do.

To all our nurses — on behalf of everyone at Women’s College Hospital, our patients, and our broader community — thank you. Thank you for your compassion, your leadership, and the extraordinary spirit you bring to your work every day.

Sincerely,

Heather & Jennifer

Heather McPherson     Jennifer Price

President & CEO            VP, Clinical Programs & Professional Practice Executive

As part of National Nursing Week, we’re celebrating National Indigenous Nurses Day on Monday, May 12. Indigenous Nurses Day is a a time to celebrate and recognize the ongoing contributions of First Nations, Inuit and Métis nurses and the impact they’ve had on our healthcare system.

As part of the celebration, the Archives of Women’s College Hospital would like to recognize the first two Indigenous women to graduate from the WCH School of Nursing, Mabel and Iola Jones – two sisters from the Cape Croker reserve in Georgian Bay.

Mabel and her younger sister, Iola were born on the Cape Croker reserve which is home to the Chippewas of Nawash. Their mother, Ella Ann, and their father, Charles Kegedonce, were married on August 9, 1898, and were parents to ten children. In an interview published in the Wiarton Echo on the couple’s 50^th wedding anniversary, their father shared his proud ancestry. He had served as the Chief of Cape Croker reserve for twenty-five years. Most fittingly, his name, “Kegedonce”, means orator and as Chief he became known as a respected and effective spokesperson. He travelled many times to Ottawa to bring forth issues related to Indigenous Peoples, and he was awarded the King George V medal for his long service in 1935.

Charles’ father, Peter Kegedonce Jones was the former Chief of the Ojibway of Nawash, near Owen Sound. His grandfather was the Chief of the Saugeen reserve and Chief’s Point in Bruce County was named in his honour. He was also the half brother of Tecumseh, Shawnee Chief, and leader of a First Nations confederacy.

It was no surprise to their father that Mabel and Iola wished to study nursing. Their grandmother, Margaret McLeod Jones was a traditional healer in the community. As their sister would later explain, their grandmother had taught their father “many things about cures from tree bark and leaves, and plant roots and poultices made from gleanings from the face of Mother Earth.”

With their father’s support Mabel applied and was accepted into the WCH School of Nursing. At seventeen years old, she made the long trip by horse and buggy, and then by train to Toronto. In 1928, she became the first Indigenous nursing student to graduate from WCH. The following year, it was her younger sister’s turn to attend nursing school. She like her sister, was accepted into the WCH School of Nursing and graduated with the WCH Class of 1932.

After graduation, the sisters followed different career paths in the nursing field. Mabel married, returned to Georgina Island, and joined the Victorian Order of Nurses. For over thirty years, she played an important role on the island. Not only was she the community’s public health nurse, but she was its midwife and nutritionist. She was well-known for combining western nursing practices with Indigenous healing practices using traditional plants.

Her sister, Iola, married after graduation and remained in Toronto. She became a private duty nurse and then served on the staff of the Bloorview Children’s Hospital (now Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital) for many years. Iola also stayed connected with WCH as a member of the Executive Committee of the Alumnae Association of the WCH School of Nursing.

Mabel and Iola Jones were part of the first generation of Indigenous women to graduate from hospital-based nursing schools in Canada. During the first half of the 20^th century, Indigenous women were excluded from most nursing schools throughout the country. Even after the Canadian Nurses’ Association declared in 1944 that “there be no discrimination in the selection of students for enrollment into schools of nursing”, Indigenous women still faced discrimination and barriers in nursing education.

This Indigenous Nurses Day, we celebrate the courage and determination of Mabel and Iola Jones who hold a special place in the history of WCH and in the history of nursing in Canada. WCH continues to be committed to being an ally to Indigenous Peoples and is working to ensure safe and equitable healthcare. Thank you to our current and past Indigenous Nurses for all you do – your impact is felt across the hospital and community.

From the WCH Archives

During this year’s National Nursing Week at Women’s College Hospital (WCH), we are also marking two major milestones in our nursing history.

In the early 20th century, nursing education in English Canada followed a hospital-based nursing school model controlled by individual hospital boards. The WCH School of Nursing was established 110 years ago when Sarah Jane Glenn enrolled as our first student nurse.

Nursing students attended their classes at WCH and lived in nearby rented houses designated as student residences. Student nurses received education and room and board in exchange for working in the patient wards at the hospital. They did not pay tuition.

The WCH School of Nursing operated from 1915 to 1975 with more than 1250 nurses graduating from our program. After the Ontario Government closed hospital-based nursing schools, our school joined with the nursing schools of the Wellesley Hospital and the Hospital for Sick Children to form a nursing program at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Today WCH continues to offer placements for both Undergraduate and Post Graduate Nursing students.

This year also marks the 70^th anniversary of the opening of Burton Hall, the former home to the WCH School of Nursing and its student nurses’ residence. Originally located across the street from the hospital at 60 Grosvenor Street, Burton Hall officially opened on May 12, 1955 (Florence Nightingale’s birthdate). At its opening, Mrs. Louis O. Breithaupt, wife of the 18th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, described the new facility as “one of Canada’s finest nursing schools and students’ residences”. It contained classrooms, laboratories, a library and living accommodations for up to 215 students.

Burton Hall was named in honour of Charles Luther Burton, Canadian philanthropist and former president of Simpson’s department store. Burton had been a supporter of the hospital since 1928 and was the General Chairman of the WCH Building Fund Campaign from 1952 to1955.

After the WCH School of Nursing closed, Burton Hall was redeveloped and became home to WCH’s Family Practice, Health Watch, TRIDEC, the Henrietta Banting Breast Centre, and Obstetrics and Gynecology clinics. Today the name Burton Hall and its legacy lives on in the “Burton Hall Auditorium” on the second floor of WCH.

If you would like to learn more about the history of the WCH School of Nursing, please visit the WCH Archives’ virtual exhibit created in partnership with Digital Museums Canada at: Welcome to Our School! | Memories of the Women’s College Hospital School of Nursing.