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Let care be had of the sick
HEALTH CARE AND THE SISTERS OF SAINT BENEDICT'S MONASTERY
BEFORE AND ABOVE EVERYTHING LET CARE BE HAD OF THE SICK, SERVING THEM IN VERY DEED AS CHRIST HIMSELF, SINCE HE HATH SAID, ‘I WAS SICK AND YE VISITED ME.’ AND ELSEWHERE: ‘WHATEVER YE DID TO ONE OF THESE MY LITTLE ONES, YE DID TO ME.’ ”
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– Rule of Benedict
Chapter 36 “Of the Sick Brethren”
St. Cloud, Minnesota, had been established as a city for more than 30 years before it held an actual hospital. And, for the most part, the city was okay with that. Care for the sick and injured, prior to the late 19th century, was generally handled at home, at the hands of loved ones. Hospitals were seen as warehouses for the lonely and destitute – a place to go to die. But as St. Cloud – and the United States – grew, needs changed. The arrival of the railroad made travel much easier and people more transient. With more unattached people without established homes, it became impractical to rely on family ties and charitable neighborliness to handle the sick. St. Cloud needed a hospital. And since, as S. Grace McDonald puts it in her book With Lamps Burning, “it had been the practice of Benedictines throughout the ages to undertake whatever work the needs of the time or place dictated,” the sisters seemed likely candidates to run it. St. Benedict’s Hospital was opened in February 1886. But minds aren’t changed quickly. In their first month the sisters received two patients. In their second month, four. Perhaps St. Cloud wasn’t ready for a hospital after all. Then, as S. Grace tells it, “There is a story that the sisters, worried about their venture, decided to pray together for nine successive days asking for Divine help in deciding whether or not to close their hospital. On the fifth day the answer came! A cyclone swept over the city and neighboring towns on April 14, 1886, injuring hundreds and killing many.” Many nearby buildings were leveled, but the hospital was left intact, and for the next 48 hours, the sisters worked until help could arrive from the Twin Cities. The tornado, while tragic, served to break down local prejudice against hospitals in general and against sisters as nurses.
S. Danile and S. Rita Claire in the St. Cloud Hospital pharmacy, 1957 – photo courtesy of Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives, used with permission.
THE MANY HOMES OF ST. CLOUD HOSPITAL
1886 In February 1886, St. Benedict’s Hospital was blessed on Ninth Avenue in St. Cloud. A young doctor named A.C. Lamothe Ramsay had begun practice in St. Cloud in 1882 and, anxious to begin using the latest techniques and methods, asked the Sisters of Saint Benedict for their help in opening a hospital.
1890 In May 1890, the sisters moved their hospital operations to the east side of the Mississippi River, at a site near the State Reformatory, and opened St. Raphael’s Hospital. (That location currently holds Saint Scholastica Convent, the retirement and assisted-living facility for the Sisters of the Order of Saint Benedict.)
1900 In July 1900, after the east-side location proved inconvenient, a new 50-bed St. Raphael’s Hospital was opened on the original Ninth Avenue site. (That building still stands today as Place of Hope.)
1928
In February 1928 the current St. Cloud Hospital was blessed as a 250-bed facility between Eighth Street North and the Mississippi River. Today that hospital is the largest health care facility in the region, including approximately 6,500 employees and a medical staff of more than 550 physicians.
1962 On Sept. 12, 1962, the St. Cloud Hospital was separately incorporated. The sisters continued to serve as sponsors of the hospital until 1995. (The College of Saint Benedict was separately incorporated in 1961.)
REDEFINING NURSING
One would think the idea of trained nurses would be universally embraced. Not quite so. Late 19th century medical journals featured opinions from (male) doctors like this: “Trained nurses know just enough to make them dangerous when they attempt to practice in our absence.” Still, by 1905 it was clear that a staff of formally trained and registered nurses would be necessary for running a hospital, and in 1908 the sisters opened St. Raphael’s Hospital Training School, which eventually became the St. Cloud Hospital School of Nursing. As S. Carmen Mulcahy puts it in her book Nursing Education by the Benedictine Sisters of St. Joseph, Minnesota, “Some early nursing leaders stressed the fact that nursing was not a second-class subject and should be taught in a college or university setting.” But the costs of establishing such a program were prohibitive for many colleges. And the tuition at colleges that did establish nursing programs was prohibitive for many of the early students drawn to the field. So three-year diploma programs like the St. Cloud Hospital School of Nursing became valuable pathways for generations of nurses.
The nursing staff of St. Raphael’s Hospital in 1923 was a blend of sisters and laywomen. Photo courtesy of St. Cloud Hospital, used with permission.
WHITE CROSS-RED SHIELD?
The sisters were obviously bold and innovative in adopting and adapting the latest medical techniques for the St. Cloud area. But did you know they were also early adopters of “health insurance”? According to the St. Cloud Times, May 30, 1888: There are three hospitals now in operation under the direction and care of the Sisters of the Order of St. Benedict, one in St. Cloud, one at Duluth and the third at Bismarck, D.T.* The Sisters have adopted a system of admission to these hospitals (in addition to the usual one by payment of stated weekly accounts), which is received with much favor. They have issued and are selling “Hospital Admission” tickets for $10 each. A purchaser is entitled, without further pay, to admission and treatment, subsistence and nursing at the three hospitals named, at any time during one year from the date of the ticket, in consequence of wounds, injury, or illness received or contracted, disabling him from manual labor. Insanity, contagious, infectious, venereal diseases, or injury received before the date of the ticket, or arising from the use of intoxicating drink or fighting, are excluded from the benefits of the ticket.”
* Dakota Territory
Finally, in fall 1969, the College of Saint Benedict introduced its baccalaureate nursing program. In The Torch (the CSB student newspaper at the time), CSB President Dr. Stanley Idzerda “stressed that such a program is urgently needed in Central Minnesota; that the College of Saint Benedict is the logical institution for this because the clinical facilities (St. Cloud Hospital) and the college are both under the sponsorship of the Sisters of Saint Benedict and are located only eight miles apart.” Research at the time revealed that the Minnesota League of Nursing and the American League of Nursing favored the growth and development of the four-year baccalaureate program “because the professional demands upon today’s nurse require a more extensive education each year.” In 1987 the St. Cloud Hospital School of Nursing officially closed. But the baccalaureate program at CSB has grown and thrived. And now the new graduate-level nursing programs at CSB, in partnership with SJU, offer one more avenue for developing trained, quality care tinged with a healthy portion of Benedictine influence.
