This is the story of the Royal Alexandra Hospital.
Authored by local historian Carolina Jakeway Roemmich, this limited-edition history book was produced by the Royal Alexandra Hospital Foundation in celebration and commemoration of our hospital’s 125-year anniversary in 2025, and dedicated to all the nurses, physicians, staff and donors of the Royal Alexandra Hospital—past and present.
The Royal Alex in Edmonton, Alberta—or simply, the Alex, as it has been familiarly known most of its life—is one of the largest and busiest hospitals in all of Canada and has been so since the early 1900s. Edmonton itself became a city in 1904, which means that the Royal Alex is four years older than the city, having first been incorporated as the Edmonton Public Hospital in 1900. It has grown along the way and long held an extremely important place in the story of our city, and in the lives of countless people from both Alberta and beyond.
As history reveals, the story of Edmonton’s Royal Alexandra Hospital begins with a fracture, and the hospital’s humble origins reflect the outcome of the evolution of health care in this part of the land that is now called Canada …
Following chronologically, the chapters of this book convey how the hospital was shaped by the who’s who (and wannabes) of early Edmonton; by world events and local crises; local, provincial and even federal politics; the growth of Edmonton’s population; the development of hospital architecture; publicly funded health care; and advances in nursing education, healthcare technologies and treatment measures, and more.
