A walk down Memory Lane at old General Hospital

Image of Nick Seebruch
By Nick Seebruch
A walk down Memory Lane at old General Hospital
Pictured from left-to-right are Shirley Heagle, Don Smith, Catherine Poirier and Sharon Porter at the opening of the Memory Lane in remembrance of the Cornwall General Hospital on Tuesday, October 8, 2019 (Nick Seebruch/ Seaway News).

CORNWALL, Ontario – Former nursing students and workers of the Cornwall General Hospital, CGH, gathered at the Care Centre on Tuesday, Oct. 8 for a walk down Memory Lane.

The Cornwall Care Centre, in its previous life, served as the (CGH). For years, nursing students got hands on training in their field at the hospital.

Now, the alumni of that program, along with a team of volunteers and supporters, have decorated one hallway on the main floor in memory of their days at the CGH.

“The point of this afternoon is to say ‘thank you’ and to celebrate,” said Sharon Porter, one of the driving forces behind the Memory Lane and a graduate of the CGH nursing program, Class of ’69.

With support from CGH nursing alumni and Don Smith of the Cornwall Community Museum, dozens of photos were collected and made into a tribute on the first floor of the CGH main building.

Porter credited the work of volunteers like Don Smith, CGH alumni and Care Centre resident Shirley Heagle and CGH Nursing Alumni President Catherine Poirier for their work over the past two-and-a-half years for making the project possible as well as Dan Orr and Matt Cinnamon, owners of the Care Centre, who supported the project.

“We have tried very hard to make sure to represent every aspect and every department of the hospital,” Heagle said.

They also thanked Andre Pommier who donated a cabinet to the project as well as $1,000.

“Thank you everyone who came here today to walk down Memory Lane with us,” said Poirier.

She then recalled some of her favourite memories at the CGH.

“If you’re looking at the wall, the very first thing you see is a silhouette of the fish pond from the first floor entrance,” Poirier said. “The First Floor East was my favourite place to work. You can’t imagined how many kids we fished out of that fish pond.”

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