Designation as a Centre hospitalier universitaire bestowed by Quebec’s Ministry of Health and Social Services
The Jewish General Hospital has been officially designated as a Centre hospitalier universitaire (CHU), in acknowledgement and confirmation of its role as one of Quebec’s most respected, renowed and busiest teaching hospitals.
Now known as the Jewish General Hospital University Health Centre, the announcement of the designation was made on July 14 by Sonia Bélanger, Minister of Health and Social Services, to recognize the JGH’s contribution to the province’s public healthcare system and its long, pioneering history of providing compassionate, patient centred care.
While there is no change to the hospital’s role and responsibilities, the new designation is considered significant, since it formally recognizes the major strides the JGH is taking to develop a wide array of innovations—many involving digital technology and AI—in order to deliver “Care Everywhere”.
More specifically, being named a CHU means the JGH is regarded as a leader in specialized and ultra-specialized care, research, teaching, knowledge transfer and innovation—efforts that benefit patients not only in the Santé Québec West Central Montreal Health and Social Services University Network (where the JGH plays a pivotal role), but in the entirety of the province’s public healthcare system.
“The story of the Jewish General Hospital is, in many ways, the story of Montreal’s Jewish community itself,” said Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg, President and CEO of the Santé Québec West-Central Montreal Health and Social Services University Network. “The founders of this hospital believed that their community held both a responsibility to its past and a commitment to its future. That belief is still deeply embedded in the community today.”
Dr. Rosenberg explained that JGH was funded and developed by the Jewish community (with support from the provincial government) during the late 1920s and early ’30s, when prejudice barred Jewish doctors from employment in most Montreal hospitals, while Jewish patients could not receive care in an environment sensitive to their unique cultural and religious needs.
Yet, when the JGH was launched in 1934, its doors were open to patients and employees of all religions and backgrounds—a legacy that continues today and is fundamental to the hospital’s continuing commitment to compassion and professional excellence in patient care.
Dr. Rosenberg paid tribute to many generations of hospital staff, “individuals from every religion, ethnicity and walk of life. It is they who carry forward the dream of the hospital's founders: to build a healthcare organization, rooted in Jewish values, that provides care for all.”
He also expressed his gratitude to the generous donors of the JGH Foundation and to “Minister Bélanger and her colleagues; the Ministry of Higher Education; the Ministry of Economy, Innovation and Energy; Santé Québec and Madame Geneviève Biron; and our university partner, McGill, particularly Dean Lesley Fellows, for a partnership that has never felt like a formality.”
“This hospital began as an act of faith,” Dr Rosenberg said. “It was built by people who were told there wasn't room for them elsewhere, and who answered by building something better for everyone.”
He concluded by thanking everyone in Montreal’s Jewish community, “whose vision and courage built this jewel. We intend to keep it shining for everyone who walks through our doors.”
Read the 
official press release (in French only).