Progress of Catholic Hospitals

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22970, 23 February 1938, Page 7 (Supplement)

Progress of Catholic Hospitals

>riHftOUGH the four general hospitals which it main-, VJ I tains in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch ap<r I- 1 - Dunedin, the Catholic Church upholds a tradition , jjvhieh dates back more than a thousand years. The obligation to care for the sick is explicit in the Gospels, and to the Church belongs credit for fulfilling it in organised locial service. A well-founded claim has been made that ; the hospital, as known to-day, is of distinctively Christian Origin. ', The early religious orders devoted much of their energy Ending the tick poor, wherever found, and there itf evidence that institutions for the purpose were set up in the fettrth century. The Churolj also gave her patronage to the medical schools which appeared before the year 1000, ' Notably the great school of Salerno, near Naples, in which the fnedioal learning of Eait and West was gathered together, and another institution not far from Monte Cast lino, the headquarters of the great Benedictine Order, the Middle Ages hospitals were carried on by / religious nil over Europe. The dissolution of the monasteries by' Henry VIXiL was in this respect a sad loss to England, and it was not until the 18th century that lay institutions folly took up the work which the Church.had formerly done ■flier the sick. > ,1r The present high status of nursing the world over had Hi origin in the association between Florence Nightingale §ifid the Sisters of Mercy in the Crimean war. It is a matter of pride to the Church in New Zealand that one member of that order, Mother Mary Bernard, who came to ffthe colony in 1860, had served in the base hospital at SeuJ tiriand all her life bore upon her face the marks of frostJbite received while tending wounded in the Turkish winter. The Sisters of Mercy carried on domiciliary work among the sick from the arrival of the first group in Auckland in »1880 under Mother Cecilia Maher. In the latter years of B|ast century the order took temporary charge of the Coro>;mandel Public Hospital, and this led two of its members, (Mother Mary Gonzaga and Mother Mary to . pursue the ideal of establishing the order s own hospital m Auck■jlMd. A large residence in Mountain Road, on the northern P|ope of Mount Eden, was purchased, and the Mate:

Modern Buildings for the Care of the Sick in New Zealand's Four Centres

Misericordiae Hospital was opened in the year 1900. Sisters were sent to Australian hospitals of the order for training, and the institution grew, so that further buildings. were erected in 1918 and 1925, at a total cost of £14,500. After the passage of legislation enabling approved privatelyowned hospitals to train nurses, a new hospital of the most modern design was built and equipped at a cost of £94,000, and was blerfsed and opened ,by Archbishop O'Shea in v March, 1936. The two foundresses are still in charge of the institution, which remains a monument to the faith and goodwill of the sisters and of the Catholics of Auckland. • The Lewisham Hospital, Ghristchurch, was established in 1914 by members of the Little Company of Mary, an order devoted not only to the care of the sick, but also especially to prayer for the dying. The sisters socm won the affection of all creeds and classes, and in response to invitations they later opened a second hospital in Wellington. The Sisters of Mercy recently extended their hospital work by founding an institution in Dunedin two years ago. This occupies a fine brick residence standing in an acre and a-half of grounds, and although at present relatively small, gives promise of the same growth that has marked Catholic hospitals in all British countries. No account of the Church's work for the sick should omit mention of the devoted services rendered to aged people of both sexes by the Little Sisters of the Poor and other orders. Many of the old folk are bedridden and helpless, and care of them closely approximates to general hospital work.