Ruth Elizabeth Emelia Kajander

Ruth Elizabeth Emelia Kajander
Ruth Kajander; Ruth E. Kajander; née Koeppe
Born	1924-08-15 Göttingen, Germany
Died	2019-11-08 Thunder Bay
Years in Thunder Bay	by 1957 (director of the Port Arthur Mental Health Clinic; married that year); at least 2011; 2019 (died in Thunder Bay)
Occupation	psychiatrist
Partner	Aatto Arthur Kajander

Ruth Elizabeth Emelia Kajander (née Koeppe; (1924-08-15)15 August 1924 – 8 November 2019(2019-11-08) (aged 95)) was a German-born psychiatrist who became the founding director of the Port Arthur Mental Health Clinic, was an early user of chlorpromazine on psychiatric patients in Ontario, and was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 2011.

Early life

She was born Ruth Koeppe in Göttingen on 15 August 1924, the daughter of Else (née Corman) and Hanskurt Koeppe, in a family of scientists and physicians that lost its wealth around the Second World War. She graduated from medical school at the University of Giessen in 1948. A short marriage to a Finnish man took her to Finland, where she gave birth to a son, Aleksei Jakovlew, whom she was forced to leave behind and who reconnected with her many years later. She then came to Canada and retrained in medicine, specialising in psychiatry.

Career

In 1953 she became the first female intern at the Oshawa General Hospital. She then became a resident at the London Psychiatric Hospital, where she asked permission to try chlorpromazine experimentally on an agitated patient; the drug calmed him, and it was later used to treat delusions and schizophrenia. The Globe and Mail says that she was the first to use it on psychiatric patients in Ontario, but credit went to Heinz Lehmann, who was working on it in Montreal at about the same time. Learning that a new psychiatric facility was opening in Port Arthur, she took the job of leading it and became the founding director of the Port Arthur Mental Health Clinic. She also ran a private practice from the ground floor of the family home. In 1982 she became the first woman president of the Ontario Psychiatric Association, and she was one of the first women to take an active part in the Ontario Medical Association.

Honours

On 30 June 2011 the Governor General announced her appointment as a Member of the Order of Canada "for her dedicated service in the field of mental health care". The citation, as printed in RALU News, reads "For her dedicated service to mental health care in northwestern Ontario." After her husband's death in 1998 the Finnish government named her Knight First Class of the Order of the Lion.

In the retirees' association

The December 2011 issue of RALU News celebrates "member Ruth Kajander", whom it also calls "another RALU member hiding their light under a bushel" and addresses as Dr. Kajander, on her Order of Canada. The president of the Retirees' Association of Lakehead University, David Kemp, had written to her in September 2011 on behalf of the members to congratulate her.

Family

In 1957 she married Aatto Arthur Kajander, a Port Arthur lawyer who served as the honorary consul of Finland for about 35 years. Their first child, a boy, was born with serious health problems in 1959 and died days later; their daughter Ann was born in 1960. She had three grandchildren.

Death

She died in Thunder Bay on 8 November 2019, aged 95. An obituary-index entry dated 16 November 2019 lists a Ruth Elizabeth Emelia Kajander of Thunder Bay with the same date of death, which is how this page, begun from the index, was matched with the psychiatrist: the name, the city and the exact date agree.