Ian G. King

1923 - 2008

Excerpts from his autobiography

Mr. King was Executive Secretary of the Sunshine Camp 1954-1957

“By 1954 polio was raging throughout the western world with no cure or preventative. The Deputy Minister of Health, Dr. Leonard Miller, asked The Rotary Club to help sponsor the development of a provincial polio society as
well as a branch of the crippled children's society. Dr. Len Miller was another person who ranks in my book as one of the finest in the history of Newfoundland. He felt that there should not be a proliferation of different
agencies, each concerned with one aspect of the social health problems. He ruled that one organization dealing with the physically disabled and related prevention was adequate and the Department of Health would support such an agency.

The Rotary Club had a facility on a lake just outside of St. John's that was used to give holidays to needy children during the summer period. This was fully utilized prior to the advent of war and the U.S. bases in St. John's. Now it was not needed to the same extent. It was felt that it could be converted into a center for disabled children. The plan was to have the Rotary Club provide these premises and other support for a new agency that
would represent both national societies: The Canadian Council for Crippled Children and Adults, and the Canadian Poliomyelitis Foundation.  The Cerebral Palsy Society was not represented as such but the local group was to meet this need as well. So began a new challenge and the beginning of a new health agency.

This new agency was called after the facility obtained from the Rotary Club: the Sunshine Camp with the word Association added....In addition to operating the center, where doctors increasingly referred their cerebral
palsied and children with a variety of other disabilities, we now decided to root out the many cases throughout the province that were kept hidden by their parents because of the stigma they felt. We started a survey, going
from community to community. Usually the physiotherapist or one of the nurses and I, would visit an area, contact the local doctors and try to determine what disabled children were in the area.

Often we were able to find disabled kids who had little or no treatment and arrange with their local doctors for them to come to the Sunshine Camp. Here members of our medical advisory team might also examine them. Often the condition might be obvious enough and physiotherapy would be needed. Each case was reviewed in medical committee meetings, which I chaired at the doctors request (as the only neutral one in the meetings). The treatment plan would be determined at that time with some cases transferred to the orthopaedic ward of the General Hospital for surgery and returned to us for physiotherapy or other follow-up.

While this activity was taking place, another aspect of our multiple mandates was in need of handling. The Salk vaccine became available for inoculation against polio. We arranged for a blitz of inoculations with this vaccine. This included organizing the schools and halls and doing the advertising for public vaccination sessions. It is interesting to note that this program had begun in Newfoundland some time before I moved to British Columbia and I was able to duplicate the public program there as no attempt had been made to start such a public program in B.C. to that time....

After three years as Executive Director of this joint health agency, with very modest pay and the problem of meeting the financial needs of a growing family, the urge to move for increased income grew fairly strong. Because of my travels to annual meetings of the two national societies, I was in contact with my peers across Canada, where pay levels were much better.

In the summer of 1957, there was a job opening in Ottawa for a rehabilitation officer and it was suggested that I apply. As a result, I received a letter dated September 18, 1957 offering me this position at the level of "Administrative Officer 4 (Civilian Rehabilitation)" in the Department of Labour, Ottawa.  Although this was an attractive offer for me at a significant increase in pay, I had been almost simultaneously offered a
position as Executive Director of the Poliomyelitis Society in British Columbia....”