Public Health and Social W cl/are Work
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hailed the undertaking as a great step forward in the alleviation of the sick and the help of the poor. 57 The building was completed by December, 1904. It had a capacity of sixty beds and was fully equipped with the most modern equipment then available. The formal inauguration and opening took place on January 11, 1905. The adverse weather did not prevent a large crowd from attending. Bishop Gallagher blessed the building and once again there were tributes paid to the great work and dedication of the Daughters of St. Vincent de Paul. The early years were far from peaceful and uneventful. Rather, they were punctuated by discouraging spells of indifference and even hostility from unexpected quarters. Some were against it because the success of the hospital would give "too much power to Catholics," as if charity were undertaken for no other purpose than worldly ends! The public in those years, it needs be kept in mind, almost everywhere had a predisposition to hospitals in general. Only the poor, helpless, and hopeless, it was then thought, were taken or went to a hospital. It is due to this misconception that all hospitals, as has been noted, were first called something else, such as "infirmary" or "sanatorium" to make them more acceptable to the public. The ancient and unfounded stigma attached to hospitals as places of last refuge for the outcast, the indigent, and the homeless has, fortunately, been dissipated, largely through the thoughtful, tender, and efficient service of the dedicated Sisters of Charity of the various orders who make the care of the sick their main purpose, regardless of creed, color, or station in life. Under the circumstances, the Sisters at Providence Hospital in Waco, in the absence of private patients to help maintain the institution, had to seek a contract with the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway to care for sick employees. In seven years, they cared for 3700 railroad patients and attained an enviable reputation. The local public and the physicians came to appreciate the inestimable facilities which Providence Hospital offered the sick and ailing. Local patronage increased to such an extent, that the Sisters did not have to renew the railroad contract to make certain of their continuance, as they had before. The subsequent agitation aroused by the Ku Klux Klan could not undo what faithful, unassuming, and genuine charity and tender solicitude for the sick and the poor, regardless of creed, had done. The physicians and surgeons, who were in a better
57 /bid., u7-118.
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