St. Vincent Hospital

On April 26, 1881, four Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul arrived in Indianapolis, bringing a willingness to help the poor, sick and injured—and $34.77. They came in response to a request by Bishop Francis Silas Chatard, who petitioned them to attend to the health care needs of the community. The sisters moved into an empty seminary in which the bishop had already placed three patients. He added $50 to their assets, and the sisters opened St. Vincent Infirmary.

As Indianapolis grew, so did the infirmary. Soon 50 beds were in operation and the infirmary took a new name, St. Vincent Hospital. During the first eight years of operation the hospital treated 1,012 patients, one of whom stayed three years and whose bill was $1,254.33. Total hospitals expenses during the same period were $33,695.78. In 1896, the sisters opened the St. Vincent School of Nursing, which trained generations of nurses until it closed in 1970.

A highlight of the early years was the admission, on September 23, 1902, of President Theodore Roosevelt. During a speaking tour, the president sustained a slight leg injury that developed into an abscess. Admitted to St. Vincent’s men’s unit, the president immediately recognized Sister Regina, who had cared for his fever-stricken Rough Riders in Cuba. Roosevelt stayed for a few hours and left under the care of his physician.

In 1918, a visitor of another sort, the “Spanish flu,” came to St. Vincent, which was now at its third location. (The hospital moved from its original site near Vermont and East streets to South and Delaware streets in 1889 and, in 1913, to Fall Creek Parkway.) Most of the sisters became ill, and 36 of the 80 medical students working at the institution were down with “la grippe”, which killed 445,000 people in the United States in only four months.

Following World War II, the hospital made tremendous strides in its clinical and support programs. In 1952, Dr. Arthur Richter opened St. Vincent’s first heart clinic. This marked the first of numerous advancements in diagnosis and treatment in several specialties. In 1963, the hospital opened the first coronary care and first intensive care units in Indianapolis and in 1973 implemented an open-heart surgery program. The St. Vincent Hospital Foundation was organized to promote charitable support of the institution, which moved to a new facility at 2001 West 86th Street on March 31, 1974.

In 1979, St. Vincent opened the first wellness center east of the Mississippi. That same year, the hospital signed a contract with New Hope of Indiana, a residential facility for young adults with developmental disabilities or traumatic brain injuries, to provide management services. A decade later, St. Vincent New Hope became an official part of the hospital.

St. Vincent celebrated 100 years of service in 1981. The next year it opened the first of several new facilities, the St. Vincent Stress Center, providing mental and chemical dependency services and a hospice for the terminally ill and their families. That same year, the main St. Vincent facility expanded to provide improved emergency and outpatient services. In 1984, the St. Vincent Family Life Center began providing family-centered care during childbearing, and in 1985 the St. Vincent Carmel Hospital opened to serve the needs of a growing Hamilton County. In the late 1980s, St. Vincent began or enhanced many programs, including the St. Vincent Laser Center, the Indiana Heart Institute, the Institute on Aging, the Breast Care Center, and the Vascular Center.

By the early 1990s, the rechristened St. Vincent Hospitals and Health Services offered programs at more than a dozen locations around the Indianapolis area and, through affiliations with other health care providers, in several cities in the region. The medical staff numbered approximately 1,100. Annual admissions were almost 34,000, while outpatient visits totaled roughly 220,000.

*Note: This entry is from the original print edition of the Encyclopedia of Indianapolis (1994). We are currently seeking an individual with knowledge of this topic to update this entry.