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Mercy: 125 years of health care in Fort Scott
Serving the needs of the community has and always will be Mercy's focus. It all began 125 years ago when two Sisters traveling from Michigan to Los Angeles stepped off a train in Fort Scott. Both women had been ill and to aid their health, they were seeking a warmer climate than their home in Big Rapids, Mich.
On their way west, they stopped for Sunday services and were offered hospitality for the weekend in Fort Scott. During that visit, the parish priest, the Rev. Francis J. Watron, related to them the needs of the people in the area. He was even able to convince them that the climate in Fort Scott was sunnier and drier than in southern California. The Sisters decided not to go to California, but to return to Michigan to request permission to move to Fort Scott where there was a grave need for a school for pioneer children.
When Sr. Theresa Dolan and Sr. Mary Delores Drew arrived in Fort Scott one year later, they had full intention to start a school as originally planned only to learn the community was in desperate need of a hospital instead. A small, 10-bed hospital had been prepared and was waiting for operation. There hadn't been a hospital in the area for more than 30 years, and the closest one was 90 miles away in Kansas City.
Both Dolan and Drew had previous nursing experience in Michigan and were at home organizing and opening the new hospital. Operations began with the two Sisters and two lay women; one as a night nurse, the other as business manager.
The Sisters also visited the sick in their homes daily.
In staying true to its intent, Mercy has remained community minded for more than a century. The community has seen tremendous growth in health care services and facilities to serve the area's patients.
Once a 10-bed hospital in downtown Fort Scott, the current Mercy Hospital now stands strong on a hill at the south end of Fort Scott. The state-of-the-art facility opened in 2002 following a $2.2 million dollar capital campaign; a testimony to the philanthropic support from individuals whose lives have been touched by the exceptional care at Mercy. Mercy now operates physician clinics in three counties in southeast Kansas; Bourbon, Linn and Crawford, as well as a multispecialty clinic where patients see physician specialists who travel to Fort Scott to limit the need for patients to travel out of town.
Over the years other service lines have been added to accommodate patients' growing health care needs. Mercy Home Care, Mercy Imaging Services, the Cancer Center of Kansas-Fort Scott branch, Mercy Urgent Care, Mercy Rehabilitation Services and Health for Life all focused around providing convenient access to the quality services Mercy patients' have grown to appreciate.
Keeping in mind that the community's needs are ever changing, even more is on the horizon. Mercy will embrace the challenge of meeting the ever changing demands of health care. Mercy's plans for this decade include providing patients access to an even larger network of providers and services as well as incorporating the latest technology to make health care easier.