[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 8595-8596]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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           TRIBUTE TO THE MT. CARMEL REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER

 Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize Mt. 
Carmel Regional Medical Center in Pittsburg, KS for its 100 years of 
providing healthcare services to the people of Crawford County and the 
surrounding region.
  From a handful of Sisters of St. Joseph of Wichita and only a few 
doctors a century ago to more than 800 employees, 200 volunteers and 50 
physicians, Mt. Carmel Regional Medical Center has remained true to its 
founder's directive to ``Do all the good you can, to all the people you 
can, in all the ways that you can, and just as long as you can.''
  On a rainy April morning in 1903, Mother Bernard Sheridan and five 
Sisters answered a call to serve in a region where countless immigrant 
miners and their families had flocked to work in the coalfields, a 
place where

[[Page 8596]]

injury and illness were rampant. One of the Sisters described the 
deplorable conditions: ``When the miner's wife or children fell ill as 
a result of these unsanitary conditions, or when the miner himself was 
carried out of the pit broken and bloody or overcome by gas or powder 
fumes, there was no sickroom but the hot, crowded, dust-covered, fly-
infested shack.'' With faith and little more than $5 in her pocket, 
Mother Bernard opened a hospital to serve those as they would ``that 
God should deal with themselves and their loved ones.'' The hospital 
was the first of many healthcare ministries the Sisters would later 
sponsor throughout Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado and California.
  The little hospital could accommodate 20 patients at the time of its 
opening, and there was no paid staff. The six women worked 7 days a 
week attending to the nursing, cooking, laundry, cleaning and minding 
of the furnace. Eighteen-hour workdays were common, and when time 
allowed, the sisters slept in the attic. To aid in the hospital's 
survival, the Sisters worked out an agreement with the Santa Fe 
Operating Companies to care for the firm's employees for $80 and 15 
tons of coal a month, an early example of managed care. The Sisters 
also created Kansas' first prepaid hospital insurance plan. For 25 
cents a month, miners and their families were assured hospital care for 
as long as it was needed. Moreover, addressing their own nursing 
shortage, in 1904, the Sisters opened a school of nursing which 
continued into the 1970s when it was transformed into the present day 
university nursing education program.
  Mr. President, 100 years later, Mt. Carmel Regional Medical Center is 
a state-of-the-art facility serving nine counties of southeast Kansas, 
and it continues to be a leader in meeting community need with 
creativity and innovation. Mt. Carmel has overcome the early-day 
adversities of Kansas blizzards and oven-hot winds, numerous epidemics, 
war, drought, floods, mine strikes and shutdowns; to present day 
difficulties of escalating operating costs, third party payer cutbacks 
and work force shortages. So well did the hospital adapt, that it was 
recognized by the American Hospital Association in 1991 as one of the 
three best hospitals in the Nation to respond to the changes in health 
care.
  Mt. Carmel continues to meet the needs of those it serves, 
identifying health care issues and addressing them with the same 
ingenuity and collaboration its founder relied upon in the beginning. 
It holds fast to its mission of providing healthcare to all, regardless 
of ability to pay. Mt. Carmel has addressed the region's need for 
comprehensive cancer care with the creation of a certified community 
cancer center; and it is now aggressively fighting heart disease 
through the opening of a regional heart center. It has collaborated 
with others to create high quality, affordable childcare for working 
families and has provided accessible healthcare services through the 
creation of a community health clinic, recently transformed into a 
federally qualified health center. It has developed one of the few free 
dental clinics in the State, and a prescription drug assistance program 
to aid those who cannot afford them. Mt. Carmel has developed a 
congregational health ministry that actively involves and encourages 
area churches not only to take care of their own, but to put their 
faith in action for the betterment of their community.
  On the occasion of its centennial, Mt. Carmel Regional Medical Center 
looks to the future as it completes the most significant expansion and 
renovation in its history. A $16.5 million Outpatient Services project 
doubled the facility's ground floor square footage and included the 
opening of the heart center, and the installation of one of the most 
powerful MRI units in the region. Also completed were a new emergency 
department, expanded diagnostic imaging and surgery center, new 
occupational health and pre-op testing departments, expanded 
laboratory, pharmacy, medical records, patient registration, and 
financial services.
  So much has changed since Mother Bernard Sheridan embarked on her 
first healing ministry 100 years ago. Mt. Carmel has grown, adapted, 
and positioned itself as a healthcare leader and visionary, while never 
forgetting its mission to do all the good it can. I welcome this 
opportunity to pay tribute to all that has and will be done by Mt. 
Carmel Regional Medical Center as its looks forward to yet another 
century of service.

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