Iloilo Mission Hospital

Founding

When the Philippines was ceded by Spain in 1898 to the United States thought the Treaty of Paris (1898), the country was opened to a kind faith where the Americans brought the Protestantism. One of the early Protestant sects that came to the Philippines islands where the Presbyterians. That time when the Presbyterian Americans came to the Philippines, they were allowed to go in different places in the islands to do their mission works, and Iloilo is the very first place that they came because it was during that era that the Iloilo is second next important after Manila in terms of economic progress because of the sugar industry boom in the area.^[8]

Iloilo Mission Hospital (IMH) Map with (1) IMH Centennial Building, (2) IMH Main Hall, (3) IMH Medical Arts Building, (4) IMH Chapel, and (5) CPU-IMH Medical Education Training Center (IMH METC).

Joseph Andrew Hall, an American Physician who worked under auspices of the Presbyterian Church in the United States along with his wife which was a nurse, endeavored to start a missionary work in Iloilo. They erected a temporary bamboo clinic at Calle Amparo (now Ledesma Street) in the City of Iloilo in 1901, to serve as a venue for the treatment of health care to the very poor under the help of the Presbyterian Foreign Mission Board in the United States.^[3]

Alongside during when they started the erection of the dispensary, a comity agreement was made that the Philippine islands will be divided into different Protestant denominations for mission works to avoid future conflicts, thus the Western Visayas region was given to the jurisdictions of the Baptists. Although Iloilo and the whole Western Visayas region came to the jurisdiction of the Baptists, Protestant Presbyterians were allowed and given freedom to do a mission in the area thus the hospital continues to operate. Andrew J. Hall and his wife cooperates with the Protestant Baptists from the early beginnings of the hospital.

In 1905, a lot was purchased on Iznart Street, and in March of the following year, a new hospital was opened to take the place of the bamboo clinic and was named Union Mission Hospital.

Like other professions, nursing in the Philippines evolved from the apprenticeship system thus the apprentice system laid the foundation upon which the Union Mission Hospital Training School for Nurses, the first training school for nurses in the Philippines was officially opened with three young women offering to help the Hall family. This is the first School of Nursing in the Philippines which started in 1906 and produced the three graduate nurses in 1909.

The school was later renamed to Iloilo Mission Hospital School of Nursing before it was transferred to the Central Philippine College (the second forerunner of the Central Philippine University) after the post World War II. Other nursing schools in the Philippines that was later built followed and were patterned after the system that the Iloilo Mission Hospital School of Nursing has since then.

In 1907, an American Baptist missionary, Dr. Raphael C. Thomas joined the staff of the Hospital. It was renamed Union Hospital. By 1920, the hospital expanded to a seventy beds. By this time the School of Nursing was registered with the government.

In 1924, the American Baptists were given full charge of the hospital and it was renamed the Iloilo Mission Hospital. More space was needed and land was purchased in the Jaro District and with the help of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society and the local community the new building was completed in 1931. The entire hospital staff and patients were then moved onto the new site. With the improvement of the hospital’s occupancy additional extensions have been added and it now has a capacity of 230 bed, tertiary and teaching hospital.

American directors

The hospital was run by the American protestants from its foundation in 1906 until the early 1940s. The last American director of the hospital was Henry S. Waters in 1948. It was during the Waters administration that the operation of the Iloilo Mission Hospital Training School for Nurses was transferred to Central Philippine University.

• Joseph Andrew Hall, M.D. (1901-1925)
• Raphael Thomas, M.D. (1907–1926)
• Dwight L. Johnson, M.D. (1926-1931)
• Percy Chandler Grigg, M.D.(1930–1934)
• Henry S. Waters, M.D. (1934-1948)
• Dorothy Kenny Chambers, M.D. (1940-1941)

World War II

World War II broke out with much damage in the hospital facilities but later when the war ended in 1946-47, Dr. Henry S. Waters, the postwar director of Hospital and also principal of the Iloilo Mission Hospital School of Nursing in 1946–1947, pressed for the offering, with Central Philippine College (the forerunner of Central Philippine University), a collegiate course leading to the Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree.^[9]

The director of the Bureau of Private Schools and the members of the board of examiners for nurses authorized the opening of the Bachelor of Science in Nursing four-year course in 1947 that resulted the school's operation transferred to the College.^[9] Waters served as acting dean of the new College of Nursing at Central Philippine College (1947–1948). When he returned to the United States, Dr. Teofilo Marte served as the executive secretary (1948–1949).

Loreto D. Tupaz was the acting dean from 1949 to 1950 and served in this capacity until the arrival of Esther Salzman who held the deanship from 1950 to 1961. During her term, the college offered three curricular programs: the Bachelor of Science in Nursing four-year course, the GN-Bachelor of Science in Nursing Supplemental Course and the Bachelor of Science in Nursing five-year course.^[9]

Tupaz and Salzman worked together to develop Central Philippine University College of Nursing into a college of distinction, recognized both in the Philippines and abroad. Salzman served as dean until 1961 when she retired in the United States.^[9] Lily Plagata was appointed to the deanship in 1961, but resigned and went abroad in 1963. Carmen Centeno replaced Plagata as dean for the rest of 1963,^[9] but she also eventually left for the United States. Tupaz resumed the deanship from 1963 until 1970, but also continued to administer the three course programs of the college, the Bachelor of Science in Nursing five-year course, the CCT (Clinical Teaching) course, and the Bachelor of Science in Nursing Supplemental Course.

Recent years and centennial

In 2001, the hospital celebrated its centennial with year long activities. A four-storey Centennial Building was also inaugurated that year. in 2004, Iloilo Mission Hospital acquired the Philips MX8000 CT Scan machine, the first of its kind in South East Asia.^[7]

In 2006, the Central Philippine University College of Nursing celebrated also its centennial as the first nursing school in the Philippines with its history that spans for a century of its existence since it was founded or established by the Protestant Presbyterian Americans as the Union Mission Hospital Training School for Nurses.

In 2007, the old Nurses' Home was demolished to give way to the new Medical Arts Building. The building was completed and inaugurated in 2009. Recent future expansion plans include a 7-story glass design Iloilo Mission Hospital Medical Center (IMH Medical Center) with state-of-the-art facilities. At present, Iloilo Mission Hospital maintains an affiliation and linkage with the Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches but it is independent and non-sectarian. It also serves as the affiliated university medical center and provider of Central Philippine University where much of its board of trustees and administration members are also member of the university board of trustees and likewise the administration.

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  The Iloilo Mission Hospital Centennial Building was built for the centennial celebration of the hospital in 2001 as the "first Protestant and American founded hospital in the Philippine Islands".
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  The Iloilo Mission Hospital Main Hall.
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  The Iloilo Mission Hospital Chapel.
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  The Iloilo Mission Hospital Medical Arts Building.
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  Central Philippine University - Iloilo Mission Hospital Banner.