Regina Health Center is a ministry of the Sisters of Charity Health System,
which was established in 1982 as the parent corporation for the sponsored ministries of the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine (CSA). The CSA Congregation, since founding in 1851, continues a faith-based legacy of high-quality, compassionate care in partnership with its co-ministers, who are the heart and hands of the ministry to continue the healing ministry of Jesus Christ.
Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine—Our Founders
The first Bishop of the Diocese of Cleveland and the Founder of the Sisters of Charity, Amadeus Rappe, wanted Catholic health care to serve the people and invited the Augustinian Sisters from St. Louis Hospital in Boulogne ser mer, France. The previous year, the Bishop invited the Ursuline Sisters to begin Catholic education in the young diocese. Four women from the Augustinian Congregation in France, responded to the Bishop’s request. The year was 1851, and the Sisters upon arrival began caring for people in their homes.
Though it was a shorter-term mission for the two professed sisters who after a while, returned to France, the two novices were professed and remained in Cleveland. These women who would become Sister St. Joseph and Sister Augustine. A novice in the Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland became the first American Superior of the new Congregation, Sr. Ursula Bissonette. These Sisters became the founding mothers of the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine (CSA), ministering in Cleveland.
In 1852, they opened the first private hospital in Cleveland, St. Joseph Hospital. This hospital was closed a few years later to respond to the compelling need of caring for orphans, in the founding of St. Vincent Orphanage. The need arose because of the challenge of parents dying from infectious disease without antibiotics as we have today. St. Joseph Hospital became the precursor to St. Vincent Charity Medical Center in 1865. Meeting the needs of the people was the priority of the ministry as it is today. Other hospitals were founded in Canton, Cleveland, and South Carolina.
Long before the American workplace widely accepted women in professional roles, the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine were directing major health care institutions, teaching in schools, and developing new programs to provide needed human services. The ministries over the years in Education, Health Care and Social Services guided the Congregation in responding to the needs of the people served and in collaboration with others throughout the history.
The Sisters of Charity have also been pioneers in neighborhood development and as a co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous in Akron, Ohio. These legacies continue in formal sponsored ministries of the Sisters of Charity Health System but also through our individual sisters who have begun Centering Space, Interfaith Wellness, Dorothy Day House to name a few involvements responding to God’s call today to meet the needs.
Sisters of Charity Health System
Many of the health and human service ministries of the CSA Congregation are overseen by the Sisters of Charity Health System. The health system was established in 1982 as the parent corporation for the sponsored ministries of the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine in Ohio and South Carolina. All of the ministries are part of the Catholic Church, responding to all of God’s people in the spirit and mission of the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine.
The Sisters of Charity Health System solely sponsors two Catholic hospitals: St. Vincent Charity Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, and Mercy Medical Center in Canton, Ohio. As health care has changed over these close to 170 years of founding, additional hospital ministries founded by CSA in Cleveland, Ohio, Sandusky, Ohio, Akron, Ohio, Columbia, South Carolina have changed too. Although carried forth by others at this time, the mission and faith-based culture is part of their history and legacy.
The Sisters of Charity Health System also oversees three grantmaking foundations located in Cleveland and Canton, Ohio, and Columbia, South Carolina. Each foundation sponsors significant community outreach initiatives and collaborations that address causes and consequences of poverty including responding to the social determinants of health.
Other health and human outreach services and education-related organizations within the Sisters of Charity Health System include Joseph’s Home, which serves as one of the only providers in Northeast Ohio exclusively focused on medical respite care; Early Childhood Resource Center for people working in childcare in all settings in Stark County; Healthy Learners, a health care resource and partnership with school nurses and providers for children from low-income families in South Carolina; and the South Carolina Center for Fathers and Families, a state-wide organization supporting initiatives to reengage fathers in the lives of their children.
The Sisters of Charity Health System also provides skilled nursing/assisted living at Regina Health Center and assisted living at Light of Hearts Villa in Bedford, Ohio.
The Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine in its living out of religious life in community, prayer, and service each day responds to God’s call to follow “In All Things Charity”, our charism, the gift to the Church.