San Francisco Chinese Hospital

San Francisco Chinese Hospital is a community hospital in San Francisco and the only Chinese hospital in the United States. The hospital is located in San Francisco's Chinatown.

Chinese Hospital primarily serves the elderly, poor and immigrants from China in the San Francisco area and provides an alternative to San Francisco General Hospital for patients with a language barrier. The hospital also operates CCHP, (Chinese Community Health Plan). The hospital's staff can provide services spoken in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Taishanese and other languages.

History

Origins

Historian Him Mark Lai cites three factors that made it difficult for early Chinese immigrants to seek medical care:

1. Many hospitals refused to treat Chinese patients
2. Most hospitals were distant from Chinatown, and prospective patients were subject to attack en route
3. Most Chinese immigrants did not have sufficient knowledge of English to communicate with American doctors

In 1888, the Chinese Hospital Association sought permission to erect a hospital in the University Mound neighborhood, but the San Francisco Board of Supervisors referred the request to the Health and Police Committee instead, based on opposition from existing property owners. Several so-called Chinese hospitals were established in San Francisco as privately run institutions of poor repute, mainly functioning as hospices and morgues, throughout the late 1800s.