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The CHRISTUS Legacy
St. Mary Hospital grows from 1927 Port Arthur request
In 1927, the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word were well known and highly respected for their hospital system. That year, city leaders from Port Arthur, Texas asked the Sisters to consider establishing a hospital in their city. However, the Sisters declined because Port Arthur already had a hospital, Mary Gates Hospital.
In 1928, the supervisory board of Mary Gates Hospital, in need of better facilities, came to the Sisters themselves. The board offered to transfer the equipment of their hospital and a maintenance fund to the Sisters if they agreed to build a more modern and spacious hospital. The Sisters accepted the offer, with a promise from civic organizations to collect funds for the construction. Local benefactors offered land for the new building and ground was broken in 1929.
St. Mary Hospital opened on May 1, 1930, with the transfer of 21 patients from Mary Gates Memorial Hospital. The new 150-bed hospital consisted of five buildings: the hospital, a chapel, laundry, a nurses' home and a power plant. The first superior was Sister Mary Eugene Purcell.
In 1954, a new 50-bed unit was constructed. An intensive care unit was added in 1966 and a coronary care unit in 1967. In 1973, a five-story west wing was added which brought total patient capacity to 271 and added facilities for advanced service such as open heart and cardiovascular surgeries, special orthopedic procedures and hemodialysis.
A new south wing was completed in 1983, increasing total patient beds to 278 plus 23 bassinets. The new building replaced all patient beds in the wing were built in the 1930s, relocated and expanded emergency services, provided all cardiac monitored rooms, established a catheterization laboratory and added a rooftop heliport. A specialized nursing unit was also built for the treatment of diabetes.
In 1986, the hospital introduced outpatient pre-admission services, a dedicated nursing unit and advanced treatment rooms for cancer treatment and carotid artery Doppler and magnetic resonance imaging capabilities.
Growth continued in 1989 with the relocation and expansion of a dedicated telemetry unit. The hospital also purchased The Cancer Center of Port Arthur, which rounded out its oncology services.
In 1991, the hospital opened the St. Mary Hospital Professional Building, The Family Birth Center and The Children's Medical Center.
The Extended Care Unit was relocated to make way for a 24-bed adult psychiatric unit, which opened in June 1992. In addition, Physical Medicine at Bishop Byrne Regional Wellness Center expanded and the cardiac catheterization service added digital cardiac catheterization procedures.
Today, CHRISTUS Hospital - St. Mary Hospital and its Associates offer the people of Port Arthur the highest quality health care in one of the area's most modern facilities.
