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About the Sisters of Bon Secours
Celebrating
the Past...
Shaping the Future
An international religious
congregation devoted to the care of the poor and sick, the Sisters of Bon
Secours (Good Help) are committed to alleviating human suffering of all
types. The congregation currently has health care ministries in France,
Ireland, Great Britain, the United States and South America. More than 400
Sisters serve as nurses, physicians, therapists, administrators and in
religious and supportive roles. In the United States, the congregation's
health care ministries, which are operated by the not-for-profit Bon
Secours Health System, Inc., now include 18 acute-care hospitals, one
psychiatric hospital,
and 5 long-term care
facilities, along with
numerous ambulatory
sites,
5 assisted living
facilities, 2 retirement |
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On May 8, 1881, a group of Sisters
boarded the steamer Parthia in Cork, Ireland and set out by way of
Liverpool, England for the United States. (Today, the USA Province is one
of five provinces of the international congregation). |
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communities, 15 home health
care services and
hospices. These
facilities are all
dedicated to the
Sisters' mission of
providing "Good Help to
Those in Need". |
HEADQUARTERS
The Motherhouse is in Paris, France;
the United States Provincial House is located in Marriottsville, Maryland,
where the sisters also maintain a Spiritual Center for retreats and
conferences.
LEADERSHIP
Sister Nancy Glynn is congregational leader for the congregation
worldwide. Sr. Alice Talone is president of the United States Province.
ORIGINS
Founded in Paris in 1824, the Sisters of Bon
Secours served as the first organized home health organization in an era
when hospitals were overcrowded and unsanitary. Sisters committed
themselves to a life of humility, poverty and charity, caring for the poor
and sick in their own homes. The congregation became international in
1870, when a ministry was established in Dublin, Ireland, and at the
Bishops invitation crossed the Atlantic in 1881 to establish a convent in
Baltimore. Here the Sisters opened the Bon Secours Hospital in 1919 and
added a school of nursing in 1921. In the United States, the sisters
established convents in Washington, D.C., in 1905, and in Detroit in 1909.
The Sisters extended their mission in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, opening Bon
Secours Hospital in 1945, and St. Mary's Hospital in Richmond, Virginia,
in 1966. Since 1983, the Sisters have extended their mission
to Charleston and Greenville, South Carolina; Portsmouth, Norfolk, and Newport News,
Virginia; Port Charlotte, St. Petersburg and Venice, Florida; Altoona,
Pennsylvania; Hoboken, New Jersey; Riverdale, Suffern,
Warwick and Port Jervis, New York; and Ashland, Kentucky through
acquisitions and joint ventures with other
religious and non-sectarian organizations.
FIRSTS IN THE U.S.
In addition to providing the world's
first recorded formal home health care service, the Sisters founded the
first day care facility in Baltimore in 1907 to help working mothers whose
only alternative was to place their children in orphanages. St. Edmond's
Home for Crippled Children, established in 1916, was the first Catholic
home for the physically challenged. The Sisters have a long tradition of
willingness to take risks in pursuit of innovation, growth and extension
of mission.
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