Kingston's Museum of Healthcare to be featured on The HISTORY Channel's 'Our War'

Story by Christena Lawrie, CFRC's Broadcast Journalist, for the Local Journalism Initiative.

The Museum of Health Care at Kingston has announced that on Saturday, Nov. 11 at 9pm it will be featured in an episode of The HISTORY Channel’s documentary series, Our War.

The series itself chronicles the investigations of Canadians as they search through museums and archives to unveil the stories of their ancestors who lived during World War I and World War II. The episode airing on Saturday follows historian nurse Jill Galant, as she aims to uncover the story behind a photograph of her great, great-aunt, Rena McLean, a Nursing Sister during World War I. McLean made profound contributions to the war effort as a nurse, and was tragically killed in the sinking of the Llandovery Castle hospital ship along with 13 other nurses in 1918.

“What I always like to say is medical history is a very specific topic, but also it underpins absolutely everything,” stated Rowena McGowan, Curator at the Museum of Health Care at Kingston. “It really is a part of every aspect of history, and that’s true of war history as well.”

While the episode was filmed in April of 2022, the Museum team has kept it under wraps until this week. The episode is set to feature a variety of artifacts from the Museum, focusing on their exhibit on World War I medicine as well as some of their other artifacts related to wartime healthcare.