** Who We Are **
London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC), one of Canada’s largest acute-care teaching hospitals, is dedicated to excellence in patient care, teaching and research. For more than 135 years, we have provided patient care for the people of London, the region, and beyond. Many national and international medical breakthroughs have been pioneered at LHSC, to the benefit of patients at home and around the world. Through our affiliation with The University of Western Ontario and more than 30 other educational institutions, we train more than 1,800 medical and health care professionals annually.
History Of London Health Sciences Centre
** Our History **
London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) was formed in 1995 upon the merger of University Hospital and Victoria Hospital. But our story began much earlier.
Our Proud Legacy
London General Hospital – 1875
The legacy of LHSC is more than 130 years old, dating from 1875, when the London General Hospital, opened on Ottoway Avenue, now South Street. The Honourable Donald Alexander Macdonald, Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, officially opened the facility. Soon after, the hospital’s tradition of teaching and training was born. For more than a century, the citizens of London have made the availability and the advancement of comprehensive hospital services a topmost priority and a defining accomplishment of our community.
Clinical site for medical education - 1882
Our legacy as a teaching hospital dates from 1882, when the Faculty of Medicine of the Western University of London, Ontario (now The University of Western Ontario [UWO]), opened in a white frame cottage on St. James Street. By 1887, there were 60 students, too many for the original site, and a new building was constructed at Waterloo and York Streets. Change came in 1921, with the opening of a new building at South and Waterloo Streets, and in 1965, when the Faculty moved to the university campus. As London's first clinical site for medical education, the London General Hospital contributed to the development of the Faculty.
Canada’s third school of nursing established in London – 1883
In 1883, the London General Training School for Nurses opened with three students enrolled—the third nursing school opened in Canada. Students lived in the hospital until the opening of the Nurses’ Residence in 1905. Nursing education in London transferred to Fanshawe College in 1975, and in 2001 became an integrated program of the College UWO.
