Roper St. Francis Healthcare’s history is rooted in philanthropy. For nearly 170 years, Roper St. Francis has worked to improve the health and well-being of our growing community. This is done in large part through the incredible generosity and support of our donors to fulfill the Roper St. Francis mission of “healing all people with compassion, faith and excellence.”
Roper St. Francis’s inspiring history began on Christmas Eve in 1789, with the creation of a partnership of physicians, the Medical Society of South Carolina. Their mission was to pioneer a community-wide network of doctors to care for the good of all.
Roper Hospital was born from the generosity of Colonel Thomas Roper in 1852. He left a bequest of $30,000 to the Medical Society of South Carolina to build a hospital in downtown Charleston. The philanthropy-funded Roper Hospital opened on Queen Street in 1856, becoming the first community hospital in South Carolina.
Bon Secours St. Francis Hospital opened its doors in 1882 as St. Francis Xavier Infirmary. This was the first Catholic hospital in South Carolina and one of many gifts from the Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Mercy to the people of Charleston.
The integrated system known today as Roper St. Francis Healthcare was formed in 1998. Community funding helped open Mount Pleasant Hospital in 2010 and Berkeley Hospital in 2019 – the first acute care facility to serve Berkeley County after more than four decades without a hospital.
Roper St. Francis Foundation, a full-service nonprofit established in 2005, has enabled our care to keep pace with emerging medical technologies. Donors have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Foundation since and have helped to establish many prominent programs such as the Roper St. Francis Heart and Vascular Center, the Donna Fielding Cancer Wellness Institute, the Greer Transitions Clinic, the Wellin Neurostroke Center, the Mott Bone Marrow Transplant Unit and many more.