When Hazelton Hospital opened in 1904, it was the only hospital in the northern interior of BC, apart from a small one in Atlin on the Yukon border. The closest hospitals to the east were in Edmonton and to the west were on the coast. Far to the south, the three-room Cariboo Hospital had opened in 1863 at Williams Creek, near the mining town of Barkerville. When Hazelton Hospital opened it had 17 beds. In July 1909, the Omineca Herald reported that, with 22 beds occupied, the Hazelton Hospital was the fullest it had ever been.
In the Colony of Vancouver Island, The Royal (Home) Hospital in Victoria, located at the corner of Yates and Broad Streets, was recorded as having been opened in November 1858, with the first patient being admitted on November 27. Bishop Cridge was one of the organizers and became its treasurer. This led to a new hospital on acquired land, which in turn led to the Marine Hospital and eventually to the Royal Jubilee Hospital. The first hospital in the Colony of British Columbia appears to have been the Royal Columbian Hospital which opened in New Westminster on 4th Street and Agnes Street on 7 October, 1862.
Vancouver General Hospital, in its earliest form, opened with 35 beds in 1888/9. St. Paul’s opened in Vancouver on 28th, 1894 with 25 beds. In the next decade a number of small hospitals, mostly private or run by religious bodies, also opened across the Province.
The nurses’ training school at Vancouver General opened in 1898 with 8 students. By 1922 this had grown to 111. Hazelton Hospital nurses’ training school opened in 1904, three years before St. Paul’s Hospital opened its own nurses’ training school with 14 students.