Bon Secours Sisters
While the Congregation's stated object is to care for patients from all socio-economic groups, in some territories they only operate for-profit private hospitals.
Initially active in France, the sisters tended the wounded during the Revolution of 1848 and the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, and the sick during the 1893 cholera epidemic in Boulogne-Sur-Mer.
Data from the National Archives of Ireland from 1947 showed that the death rate of children in Bon Secours during the preceding twelve months was almost twice that of some other mother and baby homes.
[5] The Congregation's founder, Josephine Potel, was born on March 14, 1799, in the small rural village of Bécordel in northern France.
At that time, France had been shaken by centuries of political, social, and religious upheaval — including, most recently, the French Revolution.
With overcrowding and a lack of sanitation, diseases spread quickly through city streets, afflicting rich and poor alike.
They chose Potel, who had taken the religious name "Sister Marie-Joseph", as their leader for her dedication to the seemingly endless work, and her ability to encourage and guide others.
[8] Word of the Sisters' work spread quickly throughout Paris and the surrounding countryside, and the Congregation were sought out by other women inspired by them to join.
The Sisters reached a major milestone in 1827, when the French Bourbon government legally recognized them as the first association of nursing religious individuals in the country.
Although the sisters had been requested to take over care for the sick during the 1893 cholera epidemic in Boulogne-Sur-Mer, the congregation subsequently became a target of anti-clerical governments during the early 20th century.
[6][10] In addition to extending their work around France, the Sisters of Bon Secours began to expand beyond the country's borders due to international demand for their services.
[18] Approving of the request, while on his way to Rome to become a cardinal, Archbishop Gibbons stopped in Paris to ask the Sisters if they would be willing to provide their home care services in Baltimore.
In 1881, three Sisters sailed to the United States, and in the following year they opened a convent in Baltimore on the site of the present Grace Medical Center.
In 1957, the Sisters opened a home for sick children in Chad, working also to educate mothers and reduce the infant mortality rate.
[23] The Irish Sisters of Bon Secours first began the work South America after an invitation from the Cork Diocesan Mission at Trujillo, Peru in 1966.
Many more hospitals were established, as well as community health clinics, nursing care facilities for the elderly, alcohol and drug abuse rehabilitation centers and convalescent homes.
Bon Secours Health System was established in 1983 to coordinate the administration and management of the various healthcare facilities in the United States.
While Corless speculates that the pit in which the skeletons lay may have been part of the sewage tank installed by the workhouse in 1840, eighty-five years before the Bon Secours sisters used it, she told the Irish Times, "I never used that word, 'dumped'.
"[33] Still, figures for 1947 from the National Archives showed that the death rate of children in Bon Secours, during the preceding twelve months, was almost twice that of other mother and baby homes.
[41] On 3 June 2015, the Irish Examiner published a special report which stated that the Irish Health Services Executive had voiced concerns in 2012 that up to 1,000 children may have been trafficked from the Home, and recommending that the then health minister be informed so that "a fully fledged, fully resourced forensic investigation and State inquiry" could be launched.
[42][43] On 3 March 2017, the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation announced that human remains had been found during a test excavation carried out between November 2016 and February 2017 at the site.
[48] The Taoiseach (Irish prime minister), Enda Kenny, described the find as "truly appalling", saying "the babies of single mothers involved had been treated like some kind of sub-species.
"[49] Speaking on the find in Dáil Éireann, in response to requests to widen the terms of reference of the Commission, he described the Mother and Baby Home as "a chamber of horrors".
"[52] The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Tuam, Michael Neary, said that he was horrified by the confirmation that significant quantities of human remains were buried on the site.
He said he had been "greatly shocked to learn of the scale of the practice during the time in which the Bon Secours ran the mother and baby home in Tuam.
"[54] The Irish Roman Catholic Bishops' Conference apologised for the hurt caused by its part in the system, which they said also involved adoptions.
President Higgins described Catherine Corless' work as "another necessary step in blowing open the locked doors of a hidden Ireland.
It states: The Commission's report presents a history of our country in which many women and children were rejected, silenced and excluded; in which they were subjected to hardship; and in which their inherent human dignity was disrespected, in life and in death.
We offer our profound apologies to all the women and children of St Mary's Mother and Baby Home, to their families and to the people of this country.
We hope that we, our church and our country can learn from this history.The order also committed to participating in a "Restorative Recognition Scheme" to be set up to compensate survivors.
