MEXICO CITY — The Hospital de Jesus occupies nearly an entire city block in Mexico City’s bustling historic district. Its fading, unassuming yellow front, typical of the mid-twentieth century, obscures the medical center within, established 500 years ago by Spanish conqueror Hernán Cortés.
Visitors can locate the Americas’ oldest continually operating hospital by entering between street-level shoe stores. Stone arches lead to large patios with luxuriant flora.
The hospital was established to cure the conquering Spanish but was eventually offered to the local Indigenous population to maintain a healthy workforce. Today, it offers 24-hour emergency treatment as well as economical access to medical professionals for present residents of what was once the Aztec Empire’s capital.
On November 8, 1519, Cortés and his army invaded Tenochtitlan, the Aztec name for the capital, and met Aztec monarch Moctezuma in Huitzilan, near the current hospital.
Cortés had taken the city by 1521, and in 1524, he established the hospital to commemorate the original encounter.
A floor-to-ceiling tile painting beside one of the major patios depicts Cortés’ meeting with Moctezuma. In the backdrop, you can see Tenochtitlan’s great temple, which is only a few blocks from the hospital. The merging of two suns symbolizes the meeting of two cultures.
Cortés was buried in a little church next to the hospital. Descendants of him and Moctezuma gathered here in 2019 to commemorate the anniversary of their first encounter.
Only a few hospitals worldwide can achieve such longevity. For example, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, founded in 1123, and Bellevue Hospital in New York City, founded in 1736, both continue to provide comprehensive medical care.
Much of the hospital has remained intact thanks to a board of trustees established in the sixteenth century. Countless doctors have silently worked over the years to maintain the hospital’s aim of providing cheap care while also preserving the building’s unique architectural elements.
“We want to ensure that this hospital continues to provide quality medical attention to patients,” said Dr. Octaviano Rosalez Serafín, 71, president of the board of trustees. “We want to continue the tradition of care the hospital has had for years.”
Celia Chávez Escamilla, 56, arrived at the hospital at daybreak recently to see her dermatologist. “Here they take good care of us,” Chávez stated. “The pricing here are affordable. Going anywhere else is too pricey.” Her consultation was only 400 pesos, or less than $20.
Escamilla was accompanied by her 26-year-old daughter, Myriam Rafael Sanchez, who was attracted by the medical center. “I’ve seen (the hospital) a lot in movies and TV shows,” she exclaimed enthusiastically. “We have all of Mexico’s history around us.”
According to Sandra Elena Guevara Flores, an anthropologist specializing in medicine at Mexico’s National Autonomous University, the hospital did not always serve the entire community.
“You can feel the Mexican heritage here,” stated Dr. Pedro Álvarez Sánchez. “For 500 years, the hospital has never closed its doors.”
According to Guevara, the hospital was initially only open to Spanish immigrants to the Americas, not Indigenous people.
However, as diseases spread, the hospital admitted more patients. “It was a strategy by the Spanish governors in the new Spain to treat the whole population,” according to Guevara. “It (was) so the servants and the whole labor system wouldn’t die.”
Early Spanish doctors in the hospital frequently used native Mexican botanicals to treat their patients. “It’s said that traditional Galenic Hippocratic medicine was used in the hospital, but it was Indigenous medicine,” Guevara told reporters. “They (Indigenous peoples) would share their knowledge.”
Hugo Antonio Arciniega Ávila, a historian and archeological expert from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said that the hospital’s architecture bears traces of Spanish influence.
The hospital, like many other colonial structures in Mexico City, is ‘encapsulated’ within a contemporary building from the 1950s.
Because the Spanish constructed low stone structures on large lots with massive stone walls, persons who wanted to develop additional facilities a century or two later would frequently simply build over, around, or amid the colonial-era structures. Sometimes they would incorporate the old stone walls into the new building, either for preservation purposes or because it was less expensive to use them than to demolish them. As a result, from the street, there is often no indication that a partially restored Spanish edifice lies behind a Victorian or functionalist exterior.
In the 16th century, Spanish architect Claudio de Arciniega designed a T-shaped hospital with two vast patios and a great stairway. The design provided patients with regular ventilation and sunshine. The architect additionally added a chapel to each of the two original stories.
“The architecture of this hospital is fascinating,” remarked Arciniega, referring to the planned organization of religious rooms and access to the outdoors. “If you cure the soul, you can cure the body – it’s the same way the doctors thought.”
Álvarez, 67, has worked at the hospital for nearly 50 years and currently serves as the board of trustees’ treasurer. The institution has been a constant in his life. At the age of 18, he started working in the hospital as a lab assistant.
“A lot of people ask me, why do you maintain working at the Hospital de Jesus?” he responded.” “I tell them because I love it.”
