MEDICAL CENTER OF LOUISIANA AT NEW ORLEANS

1532 Tulane Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana 70140

Jean Louis, a seaman and merchant from France and a resident of New Orleans, died on January 21, 1736, bequeathing all that he had to the founding of a hospital for the poor. On March 10, 1736, Widow Kolly's house on Chartres and Bienville Streets, which had been occupied by the Ursuline nuns while their convent was under construction, became the first "L'Hospital des pauvres de la Charite" and was named Hospital St. John. Three months later the hospital was enlarged with the construction of a hall 45' x 25' x 14'. The city provided land for the erection of the Second Charity Hospital in 1743. Charity Hospital was referred to by the Spanish as Hospital de los Pobres de Caridad. In 1779 the hospital was almost totally destroyed by a hurricane. A third Charity Hospital was completed in October, 1786 and was named in honor of the King of Spain, Hospital de Caridad San Carlos. This hospital was built on the same site as the second Charity, in front of the cemetery on the ramparts between St. Peter and Toulouse Streets. It was a brick and lime structure, containing four wards and 24 beds, an apothecary shop, a room for the hospital attendant and a large chapel. This hospital burned to the ground on September 22, 1809. The patients were housed for two days in the upper gallery of the Cabildo and then transferred to the Jordan Plantation, until April 1810, when the hospital was moved to the De La Vergne estate. Louisiana became a state on April 30, 1812, and assumed full responsibility for Charity Hospital on March 17, 1813. The fourth Charity Hospital was built in 1815 at No. 147 Canal Street and contained 120 beds, with one large surgical hall, two large fever wards, one dysentery ward,one ward for chronic cases, one for females, one for convalescents, one bathing room and one apothecary store. This hospital was sold to the state for $125,000 in 1833 and was used as a State House when New Orleans was the Capitol of Louisiana.

The fifth Charity Hospital, completed in 1833 on the square of ground bounded by Girande, Gravier, St. Mary and Common (Tulane) Streets, was 290' long, three stories high, and had 21 wards with 540 beds. In 1841, a lunatic asylum, 103 feet long and three stories high, was built behind the main building. The asylum converted into a medical building for females in 1849. In 1848 and 1849 several other buildings were constructed, allowing the hospital to comfortably accommodate over 1,000 patients. Charity Hospital, at this time, was one of the largest hospitals in the world (in Paris the Hotel Dieu had 810 beds and La Charity had 494 beds). From 1847 to 1860 between 12,000 and 18,000 patients were admitted each year most being immigrants and New Orleans was their port of entry into the United States. After the Civil War, Charity Hospital fell into disrepair because of insufficient funds. In 1844 a building for females and a morgue and pathological laboratory building were constructed. The hospital then had 52 wards with 700 beds. In 1937, the 1832 hospital and adjacent building were demolished for the construction of the 6th and present Charity Hospital, which was completed in 1939. A 14-story nurses home, an ambulance house and several other buildings were also constructed, bringing the total cost to $12,588,166. The total bed capacity at that time was 3,530, making Charity Hospital the second largest hospital in the United States.

From 1940 to the present, Charity Hospital has undergone functional changes as the methods of treatment changed, the hospital's bed capacity declined to about 550 beds. Beds were not decreased because of a lack of patients; rather, special procedural units, intensive care units, etc., were added and now occupy the space formally serving as inpatient areas.

In the last six years many areas of the hospital have undergone renovation and modernization.

GENERAL INFORMATION ON CHARITY HOSPITAL