Celebrating 125 Years

 

Saint Alphonsus in Boise Celebrates 125 Years in 2020

From Humble Beginnings

The Sisters of the Holy Cross received the first patients at Saint Alphonsus Hospital, located at 5th and State streets in Idaho’s capital city.  The first hospital in the City of Boise opened its doors on December 27, 1894.

From the archives:

“The dimensions of the hospital are 137 x 48 feet. All the modern improvements electric lights, call bells, telephone, etc. are in the building but of all these conveniences the one most appreciated by the invalids is the artesian hot water used for heating and bathing.”

Answering a call to assist during the Civil War, the Sisters of the Holy Cross, based in Notre Dame, Indiana, earned a reputation as outstanding nurses and organizers.

After the war, they were asked to found hospitals in many locations.

 

The first Bishop of Boise, Rt. Rev. Alphonse Joseph Glorieux, asked the Sisters to come to Boise to start both a school and a hospital.

Assisted by a $1,000 donation from Captain De Lamar from Silver City, work began in 1893 on the city’s first hospital.

Saint Alphonsus was named in honor of Bishop Glorieux and Saint Alphonsus Liguori. Saint Alphonsus opened with five sisters, two doctors, and nine employees.

From those humble beginnings 125 years ago, Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center (SARMC) today is the flagship of a five-hospital health system, including more than 70 specialty clinics and 6,000 employees in Idaho and Oregon.

The Boise hospital relocated to its current Curtis Road campus in 1972, marking a significant expansion and modernization of health care for the Boise area. Today, it features 362 beds and nearly 3,800 colleagues. More than 17,500 patients were treated at SARMC in the fiscal year 2019. The hospital is the region’s most advanced trauma center and was the region’s first Joint Commission Accredited Advanced Primary Stroke Center.

Even though the facility has moved, grown, and advanced into a state-of-the-art medical center, the hospital’s mission to heal the body, mind, and spirit of its patients hasn’t changed in 125 years.

Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise has held true to the words reported in the Idaho Statesman when the first hospital opened in 1894: “…the chief aim of the hospital is to heal and soothe the ills of a suffering humanity, and to create a true haven of rest and comfort for all those upon whom the heavy hand of sickness has been laid.”