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One Hand Helping Another:
The Way to Build a Hospital - and a Community
Nearly 100 years ago, several pioneers independently had the same vision of providing hospital care in their communities. Today, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center is the result of these visionaries realizing their dreams.
In 1904, Dr. LeRoy Francis Herrick opened the 20-bed Roosevelt Hospital in Berkeley, named for his hero, President Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt Hospital grew and eventually was re-named Herrick Memorial Hospital in 1934.
Also in 1904, Providence Hospital opened its doors in Oakland. The Sisters of Providence in Seattle has been asked by the local Bishop to open a hospital in Oakland and to minister to the needs of the citizens. Twelve Sisters of Providence arrived to run the hospital under their mother superior, Mother Teresa.
In 1905, a young nurse named Alta Alice Miner Bates founded Alta Bates Sanitarium in Berkeley - an eight-bed hospital for women and children. She was assisted by a nurse with one year's training and by four young women, the first students in her nursing school. The previous year she had opened the doors of her family home to a few patients. Ultimately, the sanitarium grew to become Alta Bates Medical Center.
Following the 1906 earthquake, San Franciscans moved in large numbers to the East Bay. It became clear that there was an enormous growing need. Each hospital began to expand to meet those needs.
Dr. Samuel Merritt and his colleagues opened Samuel Merritt Hospital and Samuel Merritt College In 1909, located on what became known as Pill Hill in Oakland.
In 1928, five Oakland physicians created Peralta Hospital, which quickly became noted for the quality of its service and care.
Today, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center offers comprehensive services designed to meet diverse community needs. Services include 24-hour emergency care, surgery, high-risk obstetrics, Level III infant intensive care, adult intensive care, acute rehabilitation, diagnostic imaging, occupational health, behavioral health, physical therapy, and laboratory services.
Despite its size and diversity of care, Alta Bates Summit continues to tend the flame of compassion lit by its founders in the early 1900s. Such compassion and care does not come free. As a not-for-profit hospital we do not earn money for investors. We reinvest in our excellent programs and services. We provide our communities with special health services. Medicare or Medi-Cal covers more than 70% of our inpatients. Reimbursements from these sources fall far short of the cost of their care. Adding to that financial burden, we also sustain the cost of charity services fiscal management and on private donations.
Almost from the beginning, people have supported their hospitals through philanthropy, each giving according to their own ability. Alta Bates Summit Medical Center is a result of many hands…working together.
Although it has a history of growth, growth is not what Alta Bates is about. It is about dedication to the same principles as those cherished by the group of founders who started this great institution. It is about human caring, about providing service, about meeting community needs. It is about individual responses to help, each of us contributing our special gifts. And to continue meeting those needs, many hands are needed.
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