Heeding the call of Fr. Joseph Cataldo, a Jesuit father, Mother Joseph of the Sacred Heart and Sister Joseph of Arimathea, two Sisters of Providence, traveled from Vancouver, Washington, at the end of April 1886 to survey sites where they could establish a hospital in Spokane. On May 14, 1886, the Corporation of the Sisters of Providence agreed to build and within days ground was broken and construction under way at a site on the south bank of the Spokane River at Front Street between Browne and Bernard in what was then known as Spokane Falls. When the cornerstone was being blessed on July 2, 1886, the bishop of Nisqually, Aegidius Junger, asked for the name of the hospital. As no name had been received from the General Administration in Montreal at that point, the sisters had no name to give. The hospital received its name when a priest piped in: "It will be Sacred Heart Hospital." The hospital formally opened on January 27, 1887, but the sisters received their first patient, a blacksmith by the name of John Cox, on January 15. Three days after his admittance, Mr. Cox also became the hospital’s first death. As Spokane’s population grew, so too did the number of sick, injured, and poor: the sisters’ works were quickly outgrowing the original building so a new wing was added in 1889. Sacred Heart was the region's first hospital, a 31-bed, wood-framed structure built along the Spokane River where the Spokane Convention Center now stands. It quickly outgrew its first location and in 1910, it was moved to its current location on Spokane's South Hill. The present Sacred Heart Medical Center's nine-story patient tower was built in 1971. By 1984 the new East addition housed psychiatric, outpatient, radiology, and pediatric surgery services. More recent campus developments include the Spokane Heart Institute, the expansion of the Sacred Heart Doctor's Building, and Emilie Court, an assisted living facility. Responding to requests from the medical community, and supported by the community leaders and families, Sacred Heart Children's Hospital, the region's first full-service Children's Hospital opened in 2003. The fall of 2004 saw the opening of the Women's Health Center and Surgery Center, West Tower addition. A special pathogens unit was constructed in 2015 in the east addition with federal funding to host people with highly infectious diseases. On November 28, 2006, Sacred Heart completed its 200th heart transplant.
Role
The hospital is equipped with the staff and resources to operate a level II trauma center, the only such center in the Inland Northwest. The Providence Spokane Heart Institute retains specialized physicians with expertise that encompass all aspects of cardiovascular care and work to enhance and pioneer new diagnostic testing, medications, interventions and surgical techniques and hence are referred difficult cases from elsewhere in the region. Sacred Heart is the designated special pathogens unit for the Pacific Northwest and is one of ten such units in the country with federal certifications to treat highly infectious diseases. The unit has 10 beds in the hospitals east addition and was used to treat people during the West African Ebola virus epidemic and four passengers from the stranded-in-port Diamond Princess cruise ship in 2020 during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
