Kensington Hospital, formerly known as Kensington Hospital for Women, is the 2nd oldest, and last remaining independent hospital in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. The hospital was established in 1887 by Howard A. Kelly, MD, who later became one of the founding professors at the

Johns Hopkins Hospital The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. It was founded in 1889 using money from a bequest of over $7 million (1873 mo ...

and the chair of gynecological surgery of the

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM) is the medical school of Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1893, the School of Medicine shares a campus with the Johns Hopkins Hospi ...

. The hospital was added to the

Philadelphia Register of Historic Places The Philadelphia Register of Historic Places (PRHP) is a register of historic places by the Philadelphia Historical Commission. Buildings, structures, sites, objects, interiors and districts can be added to the list. Criteria According to the Phila ...

in 2019.

History

In the mid 1880s, Dr. Howard A. Kelly opened a gynecological clinic on Diamond Street in the

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...

neighborhood of Philadelphia with the goal of providing access to healthcare for working-class women. He purchased a mansion on Kensington's Norris Square in 1890 with the help local philanthropists and converted the building into a women's hospital. The hospital eventually expanded to inhabit structures from 128 to 140 Diamond Street. Kensington Hospital for Women was sixth women's hospital in the United States. The hospital experienced financial difficulties as a result of

The Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

and later lost a number of doctors and nurses when their services were needed elsewhere during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The hospital closed in February 1945, but was purchased and reopened in 1946 as a general, nonprofit hospital by four doctors including Drs. Benjamin Ulanski and Leopold Vaccaro. The doctors began offering additional services and renamed the facility Kensington Hospital as it was no longer exclusively for women. Around this time, it is noted that the hospital began receiving financial support from a number of local Jewish philanthropists, some of whom sat on the hospital's board and owned nearby factories. By the 1960s, the hospital could not compete with larger medical centers who had access to the most up-to-date technologies and nearly merged with other hospitals on a number of occasions. As the neighborhood's African American and Latino populations grew, the hospital employed a bi-lingual staff to better serve the community. The hospital continued to struggle financially through the mid-1980s and was forced to pay a $400,000 fine when it was discovered that two hospital administrators had defrauded Medicare and

Medicaid Medicaid in the United States is a federal and state program that helps with healthcare costs for some people with limited income and resources. Medicaid also offers benefits not normally covered by Medicare, including nursing home care and pers ...

. It remained open and began specializing in treating those suffering from addiction.

Present Day

The Kensington neighborhood was hard-hit by the opioid crisis and has been referred to as the "largest open-air narcotics market for heroin on the East Coast". Enforcement programs and gentrification in adjacent neighborhoods like Fishtown has caused some drug-related activity to move north. Kensington Hospital continues to serve the neighborhood and specializes in treating infections related to drug and alcohol abuse. It remains the only independent hospital in Philadelphia.

References

External links

* {{authority control Hospitals in Philadelphia Hospitals in Pennsylvania Hospital buildings completed in the 19th century 1887 establishments in Pennsylvania