San Nicolás de Bari Hospital, the first hospital in the Americas
Hospital San Nicolás de Bari, el primer hospital de América
- Date
- 1503-1508 · confidence medium
- Place
- Colonial Zone, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
- Credited to
- Nicolás de Ovando, governor of Hispaniola
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A stone hospital authorised by the Crown in 1503 and built by Ovando, caring for the poor, Spaniards and indigenous people, which started institutional hospital care in the Americas. Its ruins survive in the Colonial Zone.
It is credited as the first in the Americas; hospitals were founded shortly after in Mexico (Hospital de Jesús, 1524). The total construction date (about 1508) and the foundation (1503) vary by author; the present ruined building dates from the 16th century.
What it led to
- a network of Spanish American colonial hospitals in the 16th-17th centuries
- European medicine in the Americas combined with local herbal practice
- a care model linked to religious orders