Rabinowitz, Johanna

Johanna Rabinowitz (née van der Woerd) was born in the Netherlands and, in her late twenties, came to Canada in 1954 with her sister. Despite being a qualified and registered nurse, she began her Canadian nursing career in Hamilton, Ontario as a nursing assistant at Nora-Frances Henderson Hospital (now Juravinski Hospital). She soon left this position to become a nurse at Mountain Sanatorium. She then moved to Moose Factory, Ontario, near James Bay, to work at Moose Factory General Hospital. She returned to Mountain Sanatorium one and a half years later.

In the summer of 1958, Johanna was one of two nurses who traveled to the eastern Arctic aboard the CGS C.D. Howe as members of the annual Eastern Arctic Patrol. From 1946 to 1968, the Canadian government tasked the Eastern Arctic Patrol with medically examining the Inuit inhabitants of this region, evacuating those infected with tuberculosis to southern Canada for treatment at hospitals and sanatoriums (principally Mountain Sanatorium from 1955 to 1961), and returning home those treated in southern Canada who had recovered.

Johanna later married Dr. Paul Rabinowitz, a physician at Mountain Sanatorium, and was employed with the Victorian Order of Nurses. She died on April 16, 2009 in Grimsby, Ontario at the age of 81.

Authority record created 26 April. 2024 by Jackson Charbonneau.
Authority record contents (biographical sketch) created by Joseph Iyengar.

First paragraph of biographical sketch adapted from Shawn Selway, Nobody Here Will Harm You: Mass Medical Evacuation From the Eastern Arctic, 1950-1965 (Hamilton: James Street North Books, 2016), 93, 138, 143.