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Our Mission
Our mission is to meet the health care needs of the community by an expression of Christian concern for the sick, suffering and dying; to manifest love, truth and justice in health care; and to promote the advancement and application of new knowledge about health care.
An Extraordinary Act of Faith
The opening of Providence Hospital in 1938 was the result of an extraordinary act of faith by an extraordinary collection of people
Father Martin C. Murphy of St. Peter’s Church, with little more than a fervent belief that Columbia and South Carolina needed the kind of quality health care synonymous with Catholic hospitals, purchased an 18-acre tract in the heart of the state’s capital city for the new hospital.
Columbia businessman James B. Younginer donated the down payment for the property. Interestingly, he was not Catholic, but he was so impressed with the treatment his wife had received in a Catholic hospital in California, he thought the people of South Carolina deserved the same type of faith-based care.
And perhaps the greatest manifestation of faith was that of the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine, a Catholic order in Ohio that mortgaged its motherhouse in Cleveland to finance the new hospital in Columbia, a city the Sisters had never even seen.
But when the Sisters of Charity founded Providence, they established more than just a new hospital. They also established an extraordinary commitment to the lives of the people of our community.
An Extraordinary Commitment
This commitment is still in place today at Providence Hospital, Providence Heart Institute and Providence Hospital Northeast, which together comprise a mission-oriented ministry that is recognized as a beacon of leadership on the state’s health care landscape.
For more than a quarter of a century now, Providence has been known as South Carolina’s “heart hospital,” and for good reason. Since Providence Heart Institute opened in 1974, the physicians and staff at Providence have performed more cardiovascular procedures than any medical team in the state. Their unsurpassed experience, their unparalleled skills and their uncommon dedication serve to make Providence the cardiovascular hospital of choice for referring physicians in central South Carolina.
The hospital’s lifesaving efforts are significantly enhanced by the Providence Life Reach helicopter service, the state’s first hospital-based emergency helicopter program, which has transported nearly 10,000 patients throughout the Carolinas and Georgia since its inaugural flight in 1985.
Cardiovascular care, however, is only one center of excellence at Providence. The physicians and staff at Providence also provide extraordinary care in a variety of other fields, including general surgery, orthopedics, internal medicine, ophthalmology, emergency medicine, nuclear medicine and related diagnostic services, maternity care, rehabilitation services, chronic wound treatment and occupational medicine.
In all cases, the people of Providence are widely recognized for their compassion, in addition to their professionalism. They capture beautifully the spirit of the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine who founded Providence so many years ago.
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