St. John's Regional Medical Center of Oxnard, Calif., held a Mass in September to mark the 100th anniversary of the Sisters of Mercy arriving in Oxnard to establish health care services. This year, St. John's will mark the centennial of the hospital's opening.
With residents concerned in the early 1900s about the lack of health care services in the growing Southern California community, the pastor of Oxnard's Santa Clara parish asked the Sisters of Mercy to help start a hospital. The congregation agreed, and a group of sisters arrived from San Diego in 1911. The women religious joined Oxnard ranchers, farmers, doctors and business leaders to help plan for the hospital. One ranching family donated nine acres of land for the hospital and a $20,000 perpetual endowment for care of the poor.
In 1912, the sisters began caring for patients in a six-room wooden building that served as a temporary location while the community raised funds for a permanent hospital. In 1915, administrators opened the 25-bed, $76,072 St. John's hospital. As Oxnard grew, the hospital expanded and in time moved to a different location.
In 1986, it was one of 12 hospitals operated by two Sisters of Mercy congregations that united to form Catholic Healthcare West. St. John's in 1993 merged with another CHW hospital, St. John's Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo, Calif., to form a two-campus facility.
The Oxnard campus has 265 beds, and the Camarillo campus, 81. The Camarillo campus also has a 99-bed extended care unit.
Headquartered in San Francisco, CHW is now called Dignity Health. It has 40 hospitals in three states.
Copyright © 2012 by the Catholic Health Association
of the United States
For reprint permission, contact Betty Crosby
or call (314) 253-3477.