Jeanne Mance opened the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal, the first lay hospital in North America.
The Htel-Dieu de Montral (founded in 1645) was the first hospital established in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.Htel-Dieu, literally translated in English as Hotel of God, is an archaic French term for hospital, referring to the origins of hospitals as religious institutions.
Its emergency room and function as an active hospital ended in 2017, and as of 2020 serves as a COVID-19 test site during the COVID-19 pandemic in Montreal.
Jeanne Mance (November 12, 1606 – June 18, 1673) was a French nurse and settler of New France. She arrived in New France two years after the Ursuline nuns came to Quebec. Among the founders of Montreal in 1642, she established its first hospital, the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal, in 1645. She returned twice to France to seek financial support for the hospital. After providing most of the care directly for years, in 1657 she recruited three sisters of the Religieuses hospitalières de Saint-Joseph, and continued to direct operations of the hospital.