Sanitoriums and the Canadian Colonial Legacy: The Untold Experiences of Tuberculosis Treatment

From the Author's Abstract, Page 1591:

"Sanitoriums served a much-needed purpose in the age prior to antituberculosis drugs: They removed the infected patient from wider society and created an environment that promoted recovery. We aimed to (a) describe sanitoriums from the perspective of a First Nations reserve community in northern Canada and (b) understand the impact of the sanitorium experience at a community level. Semistructured interviews (n = 15) were conducted in a First Nations reserve community with a high incidence of tuberculosis. Purposive and snowball sampling were used to obtain the sample. Data collection and analysis were iterative, using qualitative content analysis. Participants described the exclusion resulting within and because of sanitoriums. Exclusion within sanitoriums was categorized into (a) the exclusion of Aboriginal culture and practices of healing from the treatment of tuberculosis and (b) the internal exclusion, in which members of the community internally labeled the healed individual post sanitorium as an outsider." (1591).

Background context surrounding the study, Page 1591-1592:

"Within this study, we explored the stories of one First Nation community’s experiences of the sanitorium system, which were hospitals designed for the treatment of tuberculosis (TB). Although treatment was the same for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples, the Eurocentric model that sanitoriums were built upon might have been difficult and confusing for many Aboriginal patients. The purpose of the study was (a) to describe the sanitorium experience from the perspective of a First Nation reserve community in northern Canada and (b) to understand the impact of the sanitorium experience at a community level....

Sanitoriums served a much-needed purpose in the decades preceding the availability of effective [anti-tuberculosis] drugs: They separated the infectious patients from healthy society and placed them in an environment designed to optimize their chance of cure. In the early 1900s, Aboriginal Canadians living on the prairies were 20 times more likely to die from TB than non-Aboriginal Canadians (Sproule-Jones, 1996). Light was first shed on TB rates among Aboriginal Canadians in the early 20th Century when public health officials began to notice the number of First Nation and Inuit deaths occurring across Canada (Kelm, 2005; Sproule-Jones).

Within the context of TB, public health officials were granted the authority to coercively institutionalize the affected, forcibly removing infected individuals and placing them in sanitoriums (Shedden, 2011). Before the discovery of antituberculosis drugs, those suffering from TB were institutionalized in TB sanitoriums for a “rest cure,” which was the dominant means of TB treatment at the time. Once admitted to the sanitorium, patients were often required to stay for extended periods of time— months, or even years. Treatment included rest, relaxation, emphasis on proper nutrition, and exposure to fresh air and sunshine. Sanitoriums also performed an important infection control purpose in that they removed the infectious individual from healthy society (Long, 2007)." (1591-1592).