North Carolina Minute: St. John's hospital in Raleigh

Published July 27, 2022

By J. C. Knowles

Note: St. John's Hospital was the forerunner of Rex Hospital, located in the old Governor Manly mansion on South Street. The hospital was founded in 1878.

(Report by Hospital Chairman A. P. Bryan for 1888) "Poor patients from Wake County admitted to the wards without charge. Other patients admitted to the wards at a cost of $5 per week, payable in advance, which includes all charges except medicines and physician's fee. Poor patients outside Wake County will be treated without charge for professional services, but they will be requested to give satisfactory assurances of payment of other charges before admission.

Comfortable private rooms are provided at a charge of from $8 to $10 per week.

Special accommodations for ladies in confinement.

No person affected with a contagious disease or insanity admitted.

The Bishop Atkinson Memorial Cot is set apart exclusively for children.

While the hospital has a chaplain, patients are privileged to have any minister they prefer.

Patients are admitted and treated without regard to their religious preferences, but, simply as a matter of record, they are questioned to their faith. During the past year the results was this: Baptist, 24; Methodist, 10; Episcopalians, 8; Presbyterian, 3; Hebrew, 2; no particular faith, 8.

The total number of patients admitted was 55, from April 5, 1887 to May 4, 1888.

From the same period the number of days of treatment received by charity patients was 2,110; by pay patients, 471. During the year there were seven deaths reported."