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Bonne Bay Cottage Hospital Heritage Committee (Norris Point)

The Bonne Bay Cottage Hospital Heritage Corporation is a not-for-profit community corporation whose mandate is the adaptive re-use of the Julia Ann Walsh Heritage Center (formerly the old Bonne Bay Cottage Hospital) for the preservation of culture and heritage, the promotion of health and wellness, and community economic and social development. Their cultural heritage activities include sponsoring the annual Tales, Trails and Tunes Festival, the Community Radio Station (VOBB) and a Community Garden.

The old Bonne Bay Cottage Hospital building is one of the last remaining cottage hospitals in the province. It is maintained in good condition, and the structure has not been significantly altered. Many of the other cottage hospitals have been torn down or adapted for other uses.

Norris Point

The Bonne Bay Cottage Hospital was built in 1939, using labour and materials donated by the community. It was part of a system of 14 cottage hospitals (under the Cottage Hospital and Medical Care Plan) constructed by the commission of government of Newfoundland between 1936 and 1952 to meet the health care needs of rural areas of the province, by providing medical facilities, nursing services, midwifery training, and a health education service. This was the first instance in North America of a government establishing a subsidized medical-care plan on a pre-payment basis.

This facility served the area of the Great Northern Peninsula from Bellburns in the north, to Trout River in the south, a distance of approximately 180 miles. By the mid 1980s, the hospital had twenty-eight beds, ran an out-patients department, offered in-patient services in internal medicine, and maintained x-ray, dietary, physiotherapy and laboratory services.

In 1998, it was announced that a new hospital would be constructed to replace the ageing cottage hospital that had served the area so well. In December 2001, the old hospital closed its doors for the first time in over 60 years.