Charity Hospital: from the beginning to either a new beginning or the end.

Through epidemics, wars, hurricanes, pirates and politics, Charity Hospital has served the indigent population of New Orleans and Louisiana since May 10, 1736 as the second oldest continuing public hospital in the country following Bellevue in New York City, which opened six weeks earlier on March 31, 1736. The first Charity facility was financed by the estate of boat builder Jean Louis, whose will recorded, "a sale shall be made of all that remains, which, together with my small lot, I bequeath to serve in perpetuity to the founding of a hospital for the sick of the City of New Orleans...".