Incarnate Word Hospital

Twenty years after their founding, the Sisters responded to a call to work at the Missouri Pacific Railroad Hospital in St. Louis. They worked hard to expand their work in St. Louis, serving at St. Joseph’s Sanitarium, and later at the Josephine Heitkamp, a privately owned hospital. After many years of changing leadership and financial challenges, the Sisters were asked to purchase the hospital in 1932. Thus began their dedicated service to the poor which continued until the mid-1990s when the Sisters merged with the Deaconess Hospital, providing a continuum of care of the sick and elderly, including extensive outreach services to bring health care to those struggling to access it in a changing city. In 1997, Deaconess Incarnate Word Health System was finally sold. Part of the proceeds from the sale were used to establish Incarnate Word Foundation, whose mission today continues the ministry of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word in the Greater St. Louis area. For more information about the work that continues under the auspices of the Incarnate Word Foundation, visit their website:

https://www.incarnatewordstl.org