St. Josefs Hospital Wiesbaden
About Company
St. Josefs-Hospital (commonly referred to as JoHo) is an acute care hospital in the Hessian state capital, Wiesbaden. It was founded on November 25, 1876, and today has twelve medical departments with 531 beds. The sole shareholder is the St. Josefs-Hospital Wiesbaden Foundation. The clinic employs around 1,000 staff, who treat approximately 23,000 inpatients and about 36,000 outpatients annually. In 1853, following an epidemic in Protestant Nassau, Catholic nuns from the Order of the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ began providing nursing care in Wiesbaden. By 1857, this work was received very positively by the „Medical Association.“ With the support of the Vincentian Society and former Protestant patients, the number of sisters grew to seven by 1862. Eventually, a house was acquired on Friedrichstrasse, which, during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71, had to serve as a military hospital.
On November 25, 1876, the hospital was officially founded, and the first inpatient was admitted. In 1892, the hospital moved to a new, more spacious building at (what is now) Langenbeckplatz, designed and executed by Wiesbaden architect Wilhelm Bogler from 1890. The former building continued to be used as the „Hospice of the Holy Spirit.“ Notable surgeons, including Bernhard von Langenbeck and Friedrich Cramer, who became known for the „Cramer splint“ he developed, worked in the new hospital. After the hospital was again used as a military hospital during World War I, the post-war period saw the development of new departments. A dedicated gynecology department was established, and in 1925, a maternity ward was inaugurated. Due to the expansion of capacities, it became necessary for the first time in 1930 to employ secular nurses in addition to the nuns.
During World War II, the hospital provided care for the city’s civilian population. In February 1945, the hospital suffered severe damage from bombings. These damages were not fully repaired until the late 1950s. However, by this time, the hospital had again become too small for the increasing needs, prompting the planning of a new building, which was inaugurated in 1965. This was the first hospital in the Federal Republic of Germany to introduce the group nursing care concept from the United States.
Since the dissolution of the „Branch Institute of the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ,“ the hospital has been operated by St. Josefs-Hospital Wiesbaden GmbH, which originated from the nursing work of the Dernbach Sisters – the „Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ“ – in Wiesbaden. The hospital operates as a legally independent subsidiary of the St. Josefs-Hospital Wiesbaden Foundation. The legal representation of the GmbH lies with the managing directors, Martin Bosch (Chair) and Thomas Reckmeyer. The shareholders‘ meeting or board of directors of the foundation includes, among others, a representative of the Order of the „Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ“ (Dernbach Sisters) and the Catholic Dean of Wiesbaden or their representative.
On September 1, 2012, St. Josefs-Hospital Wiesbaden GmbH took over Otto-Fricke-Krankenhaus Paulinenberg GmbH as a subsidiary. Otto-Fricke-Krankenhaus is a specialized clinic for geriatrics and orthopedics with locations in Bad Schwalbach and Wiesbaden. The Wiesbaden location has been part of St. Josefs-Hospital Wiesbaden since March 2013.
On March 25, 2014, the convent of the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ at St. Josefs-Hospital was dissolved by the provincial leadership of the ADJC (Dernbach/Westerwald). The „Dernbach Sisters“ had served at JoHo in Wiesbaden for almost 160 years.
Since January 1, 2016, St. Josefs-Hospital Wiesbaden has taken over the operation of the Rüdesheim Hospital, which has since been renamed St. Josefs-Hospital Rheingau.