Blood Indian Hospital

The Blood Indian Hospital was designated a Recognized Heritage Building for its historical associations and environmental significance. The hospital represents Federal Government efforts to improve native health care and to eliminate infectious diseases during the 1920's. It is one of two remaining hospitals of the original six erected by the Department of Indian Affairs in the 1920's. It is important in the development of the reserve as the first and only acute care hospital devoted to providing extensive health care to Natives.

This and other hospitals and sanitoriums built on First Nation Reserves were not without controversy. in an address at the University of Saskatchewan, June 5, 2017, MAUREEN K. LUX presented the paper: “Care for the ‘Racially Careless’: Indian Hospitals in the Canadian West, 1920–1950s” http://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/chr.91.3.407 Which characterized the Cardston facility as a way to segregate the Native population, a policy supported by federal, provincial and municipal governments. “At Cardston, Alberta, the Blood Indian Hospital literally sat across the street from the local municipal hospital.” Indian Hospitals in the Canadian West, 1920–1950s p. 415