Mercy Hospital Celebrates 50 Years on Memorial Road

OKLAHOMA CITY – Longtime nurse Madalene Smith remembers Mercy Hospital Oklahoma City’s move from its “little bitty” downtown Oklahoma City location to a state-of-the-art hospital on Memorial Road in the middle of a cow pasture in August 1974 – 50 years ago this week.

“There were no paved roads, and it would be nothing to run into a cow when you were out there,” said Smith, 91, of Del City. “It was out in the country. When we moved out there, we thought, ‘what on Earth were they thinking?’”

But, as the saying goes, if you build it, they will come.

Fast-forward 10 years to a chilly Tuesday in January 1984 when Bennett Geister was born at Mercy Hospital Oklahoma City, then called Mercy Health Center. This past April, Geister came full circle, becoming president of the hospital where he and his two brothers were born.

As Geister looks toward the future in his new role, he also understands the importance of reflecting on the hospital’s 50-year legacy, made possible by the pioneering spirit of the Sisters of Mercy.

A Vision for the Future

In July 1947, the Sisters of Mercy purchased Oklahoma City General Hospital and embarked on a new ministry of health care in Oklahoma.

By the 1960s, Sister Mary Coletta Massoth and the Sisters of Mercy began investigating the creation of a much larger hospital based on projected growth in Oklahoma City.

The Sisters chose the 40-acre property on Memorial Road in northwest Oklahoma City because the area was expected to grow by more than 50%, and the much larger property would allow for future hospital expansion.

“Mercy’s location on the city’s future ‘outer loop’ will soon make it one of the more easily accessible hospitals,” declared a Mercy supplement in The Oklahoman published Aug. 18, 1974. “Mercy will be an oasis in the middle of residential development, motels, shopping centers and offices.”

That prediction came true.

“Sister Coletta was one of the most outstanding women I’ve known,” said Smith, a beloved labor and delivery nurse who worked for Mercy Hospital Oklahoma City for 62 years before retiring in 2020. “She had a dream. She foresaw the future and she knew what to do to bring us up to the standards all over the hospital. She had a hard job at that time and did it well.”

Since the hospital opened its doors 50 years ago, the surrounding area has transformed from farm prairie into a fast-growing retail and health care corridor. Mercy has grown from the original 225 patient beds in 1974 to nearly 400 beds and multiple campuses today.

The team at Mercy Hospital Oklahoma City saw nearly 64,000 patients in the emergency room, cared for more than 330,000 patients through clinic visits and delivered nearly 4,000 babies over the last year. That was a far cry from about 300 to 400 babies a year in the previous hospital in the 1960s, recalled Smith. 

A Look at Mercy in 1974

Even before moving to the new building, Mercy’s obstetrics program was ahead of its time. In the 1960s, Smith recalls the introduction of fetal monitors and an intravenous (IV) drip with medicine to help slow premature labor.

Moving to the new building in the 1970s brought even more advancements.

“The one thing I remember the most is the system we had to adjust to,” Smith recalled. “It was a whole different system and very modern. We used to have to walk downstairs to get medications from the pharmacy in the old building. It was all by machine at the new location.”

When the hospital opened in 1974, it featured:

• Private rooms for patients – one of the first hospitals in Oklahoma to offer all private rooms.
• A fetal intensive care system that monitored contractions and the baby’s heartbeat during labor.
• Hydrotherapy equipment in the rehabilitation and physical therapy department. This included whirlpool baths for underwater exercises.
• An elaborate TV studio with a color closed-circuit channel. As the first-of-its-kind system in an Oklahoma hospital, the TV station was designed to provide shows about important health care topics for patients in their rooms.
• Twelve surgery rooms and two obstetrics delivery rooms that featured state-of-the-art equipment. All 14 rooms could be used for surgeries and/or deliveries.

Mercy Hospital Oklahoma City Over the Years

The hospital has seen big advancements in treatment and care in the half-century since it opened on Memorial Road. Here are a few highlights throughout the years:

• 1988: The Mercy Birthplace opened in Oklahoma City. The new model of care allows dads and other family members to be in the room during delivery. Previously, dads could only watch the birth on a color closed-circuit channel.
• 1993: Mercy NeuroScience Institute (now called the Meinders NeuroScience Institute) opened, the fourth of its kind in the nation.
• 2002: Oklahoma Heart Hospital North opened on the campus of Mercy Hospital Oklahoma City, the first all-digital heart hospital in the United States.
• 2010: Oklahoma Heart Hospital South opened in southeast Oklahoma City.  
• 2012: Mercy Health Center became Mercy Hospital Oklahoma City.
• 2012: Mercy was the first center in Oklahoma and one of only 15 in the nation to earn Advanced Certification for Comprehensive Stroke Centers when the two-year certification was established by The Joint Commission.
• 2014: Mercy Edmond I-35 opened and featured a first-of-its-kind wellness center, outpatient surgery center, imaging services and physician offices.
• 2016: Mercy Coletta Cancer Center, a cancer detection and treatment center, opened on the Mercy Hospital Oklahoma City campus.
• 2019: Mercy opened a new emergency department and primary care clinics at the Mercy Edmond I-35 campus.
• 2020: Mercy Hospital Oklahoma City - South opened to serve patients in south Oklahoma City. 
• 2024: The Love Family Women’s Center opened on the campus of Mercy Hospital Oklahoma City. Among other features, it includes an obstetrics emergency department and a low-intervention birthing unit for births involving a team of nurses and a midwife. Both services are the first of their kind in Oklahoma City.

Click here to learn about Mercy Hospital Oklahoma City’s services, history and achievements.

Looking Ahead at the Next 50 Years

Geister, president of Mercy Hospital Oklahoma City Communities, is excited for the next 50 years.

“My hope for the future is for Mercy Hospital Oklahoma City to continue being a blessing to not only our community in Oklahoma City but to the entire state of Oklahoma,” Geister said. “We want to care for everyone who needs us in the region and carry on the legacy of those who came before us.”

That legacy of the Sisters of Mercy is something Smith carried with her throughout her nursing career. She hopes the Mercy spirit of service lives on over the next 50 years and beyond.

“I hope they carry on what Mercy’s all about – the ‘Mercy Way,’” said Smith. The Mercy Way is the idea that you care for everyone equitably with dignity. “It’s about caring for everyone, giving everything you’ve got and doing it right.”