St. Mary's Medical Center (San Francisco)
| St. Mary's Medical Center | |
|---|---|
| Dignity Health | |
| Geography | |
| Location |
450 Stanyan St. San Francisco, CA 94117, San Francisco, California, United States |
| Organization | |
| Care system | Private |
| Hospital type | Community |
| Affiliated university | None |
| Services | |
| Beds | 403 |
| History | |
| Founded | 1857 |
| Links | |
| Website | https://www.dignityhealth.org/bayarea/locations/stmarys |
| Lists | Hospitals in California |
450 Stanyan St.
St. Mary's Medical Center (SMMC) is a hospital in San Francisco, California, USA. It is currently operated by Dignity Health.
SMMC is the oldest continuously operating hospital in San Francisco. St. Mary's Hospital was opened on July 27, 1857 by the Sisters of Mercy. Prior to this, the sisters had operated the first County hospital in San Francisco, the Stockton Street Hospital. Only after the County refused to reimburse the sisters for their service were they forced to open SMMC.
St. Mary's sister hospital is Saint Francis Memorial Hospital, also in San Francisco, it is located between the Nob Hill and Tenderloin districts and is the only hospital in the downtown area.
The history of St. Mary's Medical Center is an inspiring testimony to the tireless efforts of the Sisters of Mercy, outstanding physicians and the many other dedicated individuals who have committed their talents and resources to serving the community of San Francisco, including the poor and marginalized .
In 1831, Irish heiress Catherine McAuley used her fortune to establish the Sisters of Mercy at the Convent of Mercy in Dublin, Ireland. A teaching-nursing-social services congregation that has become the second largest order of religious women in the world, the Sisters of Mercy sponsor and co-sponsor many organizations and ministries, including St. Mary's Medical Center and Dignity Health. Six Sisters from the order's Burlingame Region—which covers California, Phoenix, Arizona and Peru—continue to serve vital roles at St. Mary's today.
In 1854, Rev. Hugh Gallagher, at the request of San Francisco's first Archbishop Joseph Alemany, solicited the Sisters for service in San Francisco. Almost all of the 29 Sisters volunteered. Eight Sisters were chosen to make the journey, headed by 25-year-old Sister Mary Baptist Russell (née Katherine Russell), who had joined the order at the age of 19 and nursed victims through Ireland's horrible cholera epidemic of 1849—an experience that later would prove valuable in San Francisco.
The Sisters faced a harrowing, three-month journey. Mother Russell booked passage on the Arctic, scheduled to leave Dublin on September 13. In a twist of fate, the ship was overbooked, so the Sisters sailed from Liverpool on the Canada a few days later. The Arctic collided with another vessel in a dense fog, and everyone on board died. After crossing the Atlantic, the Sisters faced an exhausting crossing of the Isthmus of Nicaragua by river boat and mule train before boarding the Pacific steamer, Cortes, for the last leg of their journey, sharing the voyage with a motley crowd of gold prospectors. The valiant Irish nuns disembarked to a chilly gray dawn in San Francisco on Friday, December 8, 1854.
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Wikipedia