St Mary's Hospital & Medical Center Inc history

The City of Lewiston responded to a small pox epidemic in 1899 by establishing a "Pest House" in which patients were quarantined.

The relationship between HSHS St Mary's Hospital Medical Center and Green Bay dates back to 1900, when the Misericorde Sisters came to Green Bay to open a home for unwed mothers and their babies.

The need for a larger hospital became clear and in 1902 a separate hospital was built providing 150 beds and 25 bassinets.

In 1903, the hospital and a nurse training school opened in a building on the corner of Webster Avenue and Crooks Street.

In 1908 Sisters' Hospital opened its doors, with just two nurses on staff.

In response, the Sisters established a nurses training school that opened 1910.

The first expansion included two additional stories and a new wing, and was finished in 1912.

St Mary's Regional Medical Center in Enid, Oklahoma was founded in 1915 by Doctor G.A. Boyle as a 12-bed hospital named Enid Spring Sanatorium and Baths.

In 1921, they opened a second West Virginia hospital, in Buckhannon.

On November 6, 1924, the Sisters were ready to open their 35-bed hospital and place it under the protection of Mary, the Mother of God.

Established by Doctor R.L. Smith in 1925, Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center has served the Arkansas River Valley for more than 90 years.

In June of 1927, St Mary's accepted its first intern, Doctor Harry E. Beard, a graduate of the Medical College of Virginia.

Realizing that there was a need to care for the poor, sick, and infirm elderly, the sisters built the Marcotte Nursing Home in 1928 with a donation of $120,000 from F. X. Marcotte, one of the early French Canadian business owners.

In 1931, St Mary's took a major step forward when it received the formal approval of the American College of Surgeons.

In 1933, the hospital's Crippled Children's Clinic opened.

Soon, the shortage of beds again was acute, and despite the twin ravages of the Great Depression and the 1937 flood that inundated much of Huntington, St Mary's raised $200,000 in contributions from the community to finance the construction of a new wing.

The wing was dedicated on November 9, 1938.

Plunged into war by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the nation found itself in urgent need of trained nurses, and so St Mary's expanded enrollment at its School of Nursing.

When Newton T. Bass traveled Route 66 north through the Cajon Pass in 1943, imagine his delight with the landscape’s beauty.

1946 In 1946, Bass moved his family to the area permanently.

On November 6, 1949, St Mary's marked its 25th anniversary with an open house and a Pontifical High Mass of Thanksgiving.

St Mary Desert Valley Hospital in Apple Valley, a 29-bed acute and maternity care facility, was dedicated on November 19, 1956.

The 1958 project also included construction of a new convent.

In 1960, responding to the request of the Bishop of Green Bay for a Catholic hospital on Green Bay's growing west side, the Sisters relocated their entire campus to its current site on Shawano Avenue.

In 1969, hospital sponsorship transferred from the Sisters of Immaculate Heart of Mary to the Brothers of St John of God.

And on November 24, 1974, St Mary's celebrated its 50th anniversary by dedicating its new addition.

Open heart surgery became a reality in the Tri-State on September 24, 1979, when the first open heart operation was performed in St Mary's new $2.35 million heart unit.

The new hospital opened as the first all private-room hospital in Northeast Wisconsin in the fall of 1981.

And by 1984, St Mary Desert Valley Hospital was a 109-bed, top-of-the-line medical treatment facility serving more than 175,000 High Desert residents.

Dedicated to preserving the lifestyle Bass and Westlund created, the Town of Apple Valley was formed in 1988.

In July 1989, HSHS St Mary's Hospital Medical Center and HSHS St Joseph's Hospital of Chippewa Falls opened Libertas, a 24-bed inpatient facility for chemically dependent adolescents on the HSHS St Mary's Hospital Medical Center campus.

In 1992, a major ambulatory wing was added including outpatient surgery, advanced radiology and diagnostic services, respiratory care, pulmonary medicine and a new education center.

In December 1995, cancer care in the Tri-State took a major step forward with the announcement that St Mary's was affiliating with the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center, one of the national leaders in the field.

In 1996, HSHS St Mary's Hospital Medical Center joined with HSHS St Vincent Hospital, Beaumont-Webster Clinic and West Side Clinic to form Prevea Health Services, Inc., an integrated health care delivery system.

By July 1997, the outpatient facility was completed and opened its doors providing the community with outpatient surgical and diagnostic services as well as additional physician offices.

On August 1, 1999, St Mary's dedicated its new Radiation Oncology Center, part of a $5 million renovation to the radiation therapy department.

The Joslin Diabetes Center of Boston, an international leader in diagnosing and treating diabetes, opened a center at St Mary's in January 2000.

Prime Healthcare Services acquired Desert Valley Hospital in Victorville, California in January, 2001 in order to save it from closure.

In August 2002, St Mary's Board of Directors and the Pallottine Missionary Sisters agreed that the hospital would be renamed St Mary's Medical Center.

In 2004, Prime Healthcare acquired Chino Valley Medical Center from bankruptcy.

In 2006, Prime Healthcare saved Sherman Oaks Hospital from the same fate.

Prime Healthcare was recognized as a Top 10 Health System in 2009.

A regional cancer center opened on HSHS St Mary's Hospital Medical Center's campus in January 2010 as part of the Regional Cancer Collaborative.

Thomson Reuters expanded the award from 10 systems to 15 systems in 2011 so that it could have three categories, large, medium, and small and Prime Healthcare was included among the medium systems in 2011.