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Originally Posted by Doug
Someone who actually experienced the General in person rather than through the perspective of activist groups like Friends of Medicare, would not miss any aspect of its sorry existence
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My experiences there numbered many, many dozen, and I know personally several people who worked there. They had the first ICU in Calgary, and like that innovation, launched numerous best practices that spread across the city, and in some instances across the country. But of course this thread is not meant to be about health care per se, rather, it is about if the building should have been destroyed of repurposed with renovations as a potentially spectacular example of a heritage building converted to residences and some commercial areas, including new commercial areas to the north and south in the then parking lots.
There was a rumour going around that the Conservatives wanted the General erased from history because the original was funded by an immigrant. Is it true that an immigrant underwrote the original 1890 structure?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug
Hopefully the former Holy Cross Hospital site will eventually redevelop as well. While not as dumpy as the General, it's facilities were also completely obsolete.
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My recollection is that the Conservative government of the time sold it for pennies on the dollar to a private outfit who then kept it running for aspects of private care the government changed the laws to allow. The government, therefore, ended up making the health service pay these "friends" for services provided out of the same facility they ensured needed closed.
