The story of St Joseph’s began during the second world war, two years before the birth of the NHS, when the founding sisters committed to bring health and care to the people of a growing community. The Sisters of St Joseph of Annecy were founded in Le Puy, France in 1650. Now a community of over 11,000 sisters, they live out Father Médaille’s original vision in communities around the world.
During the war years, the need for hospital care became acute. The three founding sisters, Sr Josephine, Sr Alphonse and Sr Malachy were sent to London to train as nurses, before the opening of the nursing home – a term coined by the Government at the time, for private hospitals. Through the ages, the Sisters of St Joseph have always been faithful to the ideal of their founder, bringing care and compassion to the sick, the suffering and those most in need.
In 1944 the Sisters of St Joseph’s registered charity purchased Claremont House at Malpas from the Brewer family, and it became a convent. The convent officially opened as St Joseph’s Nursing Home in 1946. It had just 16 beds and 314 patients in the first year. The largest room became the operating theatre where Sister Alphonse was the theatre sister as well as matron. The first surgical operation was performed on 11th February that year.
In Claremont House there was only one room for the sisters and that served as a dining room, community room and parlour. The bedrooms for the sisters were to be found in what had formerly been the outhouses. The Welfare state came into being in 1948 and patient numbers rose to 427. There was a need to enlarge the Nursing Home.
The 1950s saw great change and advancement in both medicine and nursing. The founding sisters agreed that expansion was necessary, and they sold some of the green fields which surrounded Claremont House to cover the costs to build a completely new hospital. The new St Joseph’s Hospital opened its doors in 1961 offering 52 beds. A 12-bed maternity unit was added in the late 1960's to serve the needs of a growing population. The babies would be looked after at night so that the mothers could get a good nights sleep. The maternity unit closed when the Royal Gwent Hospital opened its maternity facilities and there was no longer a need for the extra support. Records show an annual increase in patient numbers from Gwent and beyond.
In the late 1960s, Cardinal Heenan and Archbishop Murphy of Cardiff visited the hospital and the new Maternity ward. In 1977 Pope Paul VI sent a message of encouragement and support to the Sisters at St. Joseph’s Hospital.
Sister Bernadette commented, “The development of the hospital in the 1980s was very significant, it was a time of great change everywhere. The sisters felt that if they were to continue to serve the people, then St Joseph’s needed to be updated." Sister Susan oversaw theatres in the late 1980s and is the current Sister Provincial. In the 1980s the Friends of St Joseph’s Hospital was set up by volunteers to fundraise for the hospital and later for St Anne’s Hospice. The hospice opened in 1996 and provided immense comfort and consolation to so many. The Sisters gradually retired from the hospital and in 2014 it was sold and became privately owned.
