Ralph Raina had seven ribs removed, no money and a Grade 9 education by the time he left Ottawa’s tuberculosis sanatorium 74 years ago.
Ralph Raina was 14 years old when he first entered Ottawa’s tuberculosis sanatorium in 1939 for rest and what little treatment was available at the time. The deadly disease was making its way through his family with devastating results.
His sister Clara would soon join him in the children’s section of the Lady Grey Hospital, better known back then as “the San,” on the current site of the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre. His older brother John, 18, was already there, in a separate building across the grounds. Their parents would make the trek from their home on 30 acres of rented farmland near Billings Bridge to visit them.
When he first arrived, Ralph looked out the window of the room he shared with other young patients and saw the light from his brother’s room. Every night, he would stare at it.
“All of a sudden one day it was gone,” he remembers.
John Raina died from tuberculosis at the age of 18. He would not be the last in the family to be taken by the deadly disease that infected seven of the 10 Raina children, killing two of them as well as their father.
Between September 1939 and June 1954 there was only one three-month period when there was not a Raina in the San. At times four members of the family were there at once.
Clara and Ralph spent the formative years of their childhoods and adolescence living in the tuberculosis hospital.
At the San, Ralph said he saw 20 people die in his first two months there. The young man was warned that he would not be spared.
“Don’t plan on leaving this hospital alive,” a doctor at the San told Raina in 1944, when he was 19.
Eighty-one years after that grim prognosis, a robust Raina, retired from a career as a successful businessman and municipal politician, is about to celebrate his 100th birthday, a medical miracle in many ways.
His long life and good health even surprises him. Among other things, doctors removed seven of his ribs as part of TB treatment that went on for years.
“I tell you my body, the beating that it took, that I am still here is beyond belief.”
His milestone birthday, fittingly, falls on World Tuberculosis Day, March 24. But it also comes at a time when the disease that conjures another era in Ottawa is making a deadly comeback around the world.
Raina’s story, and his family’s, serves as a cautionary tale for the times. The advent of antibiotics and targeted treatments starting in the middle of the last century was game-changing for tuberculosis, especially in wealthier countries such as Canada. But growing antibiotic resistance and lack of access to medication has meant TB continues to spread around the world and is responsible for the most deaths of any infectious disease globally.
In 2023, approximately 1.25 million people died and new cases hit an all-time high.
This month the World Health Organization warned of a possible tuberculosis surge because of cuts by the Trump administration to work being done through the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Evening Update
“I spent 10 years as a tuberculosis doctor working in the U.S. and globally,” Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and one of the world’s experts in tuberculosis wrote recently on the social media platform X. “Recent funding cuts to global TB programs aren’t just stalling progress — they’re actively reversing decades of advances against the world’s deadliest infectious disease.”
Raina’s story is a reminder of what the disease is capable of.
He was admitted to the San for four different periods between the ages of 14 and 26, when he was discharged for the last time. In between, there were brief periods when he returned home to rest and try to resume his life. He obtained a Grade 9 education but wasn’t able to go beyond because of his illness.
Between stays at the San, Raina was briefly able to work. Among his jobs was as a clerk at air force headquarters in Ottawa where his duties included occasional cigarette runs for First World War flying ace Billy Bishop, who had an office upstairs.
But his fragile health continued to mean more time at the sanatorium. He lived at the San for six months when he was 14; for more than in his late teens; for more than a year in his early 20s; and 21 months in his mid-20s. He was released for the last time at age 26.
During that time, he read extensively, played bridge and learned crafts, some of which he sold. He still has a well-thumbed dictionary that kept him occupied and an elaborately designed purse and wallet he made for his mother. Among his roommates was photographer Malak Karsh, who would go on to become the founder of Ottawa’s famous tulip festival, who back then tried to interest Raina in a career as a photographer.
The treatment for tuberculosis included rest and fresh air. The San was located near what was the edge of the city when it first opened because of its proximity to nature. Children’s beds would often be out on a covered porch during warmer weather.
But there were also invasive treatments. That included the removal of ribs to allow doctors to treat TB by collapsing the affected lung with the aim of giving it a chance to heal and potentially depriving the bacteria of oxygen. The procedure was called a thoracoplasty.
Raina had seven ribs removed during surgery, something he has lived with for close to eight decades. That is a key reason he is amazed he has lived for so long in such good health. At 100, he lives at home in Kemptville with his wife Cathie, sometimes uses a hickory cane to help remain steady and takes just one prescription medication. He also doesn’t smoke or drink and carefully watches what he eats.
“I don’t understand it, to be honest, seven ribs out of here,” he said putting a hand on his upper chest.
Raina also underwent pneumothorax treatments, which involved injecting air or gas into the chest or pleural space causing a lung to partly or entirely collapse. The treatment was also aimed at giving the lung a chance to rest in the hopes of treating the disease.
Raina started the difficult treatments in 1944, shortly after a doctor told him he should not expect to leave the San alive. Between January 1944 and September 1955, he underwent 322 such treatments.
Raina’s younger sister Anne was in touch with a California-based pulmonologist who believes the number of pneumothorax treatments her brother received amounts to a world record.
Anne Raina and Clara Raina Flannigan wrote a book — Clara’s Rib — about Clara’s experiences in the San. The book is based on diaries she kept. Anne Raina has also spoken widely about her family and TB.
Ralph Raina’s difficult early life did not restrict his ambition when he was finally a free man. He went on to live life as if he was making up for lost time.
“When he finally left the San,” said his wife Cathie, “he had seven ribs out, no money and a Grade 9 education.”
Raina says he learned resilience, how to rest, how to take care of himself and how to be patient during his time as a patient.
In need of work when he was released, he applied for a peddler’s license and found a supplier for men’s work clothes. He began knocking on farmhouse doors around Kemptville, near the Raina family farm, to sell his wares.
At one of his first stops, a woman answered the door and told him: “The men are all out working. What do you have for us?”
Raina took the advice and became successful selling women’s and children’s clothing, sometimes bringing racks to farmhouses and waiting in the car while they were tried on.
While he was getting his business started, Raina’s father was dying at home from tuberculosis, too late for treatment. Raina and his mother helped take care of him during his final days.
Raina eventually opened a small store on his family’s farm and then in Kemptville, progressively moving to bigger locations and eventually building a large combined apartment building and store complex. Raina’s Family Store was a thriving part of Kemptville’s business area.
Raina also served on town council and as mayor of Kemptville for nine years, after having been elected three times. He served as mayor until 1988.
Raina believes it took strength and determination to be able to defeat tuberculosis — something that has helped guide the rest of his life.
“To beat TB you had to be headstrong and determined and put mind over matter,” he told a reporter in 1985. “Some people just laid down and died when they came to the San.”
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