Red Cross Hospital, 1930.
Recent Red Cross Hospital
Once racial segregation slowly began to diminish in severity, particularly following the 1964 Civil Rights Act, medical services in Louisville gradually started to integrate. However, some better racial fairness, financial expenses, the emergence of reimbursement through the Medicare / Medicaid system, private insurance, veteran services and wider health care access, ultimately lead to huge fiscal shortages at Red Cross.
Many people with insurance then often frequented other hospitals. Red Cross had increasingly become the common facility of last resort for uninsured and / or indigent patients. Because of that, in 1970, the name was changed to Community Hospital, hoping to enhance broader appeal. Nevertheless, without a consistent revenue source and lots of unpaid service, bankruptcy emerged. The Red Cross Hospital closed in 1976.
The hospital’ s historical marker stands at 1436 South Shelby Street and was erected in 2018 under the auspices of Metro Councilwoman Cheri Bryant Hamiton, a graduate of Loretto High School in the far West End. The plaque recognizes the Red Cross Hospital that for 77 years treated Black Kentuckians and medically indigent persons in Louisville from 1899 to 1976. Its text reads,“ In 1899, because Black physicians were barred from treating patients at public or church hospitals, Drs. W. T. Merchant, Ellis D. Whedbee and R. B. Scott founded Red Cross Hospital at Sixth and Walnut. In 1905 it moved to 1436 South Shelby St. and offered training programs for black nurses and physicians.”
The Shelby Street campus is now the home of a Volunteers of America treatment center, VOA Recovery / Liberty Place, for those struggling to free themselves from substance abuse. This cycle of caring continues what three pioneering Black physicians began, well over a hundred years ago.
Dr. Lippmann is a retired psychiatry professor from the University of Louisville School of Medicine. Subsequently, he regularly donates primary care medical practice in free clinic services at the Family Community Clinic, mentors lots of students, residents and international medical graduate physicians and teaches scientific medical writing seminars.
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