HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — In the heart of Houston’s Third Ward, a building that once cared for a community is coming back to life.
The historic Riverside General Hospital is being restored to open its doors again after being closed for more than a decade.
It represents more than bricks and halls; as Houston’s first hospital for Black patients, it is part of Black history.
It’s a place where 92-year-old Dorothy Booker dedicated a decade of her life.
“I’m proud to be a part of something that started in my life, advanced in my life, that I was able to help somebody,” Booker said.
Ms. Booker said she started volunteering at the hospital in 1980.
“Help the nurses and to help the doctors and whatever was needed at the hospital,” Booker said. “We did a lot of service with the children and with the patients.”
The building holds many memories for Booker, and those memories hold history.
“Being able to go and service and help the Black doctors, because they didn’t have any white doctors over there,” Booker said.
The hospital was originally founded in the 1920s.
“Initially, it was called Houston Negro Hospital. It opened up in 1926,” Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis said. “The result of a group of African-American doctors, a group of Black doctors were petitioning the city for a hospital to serve African-Americans because they could not service their patients in the main hospitals in Houston, because it was a very difficult era in our history of segregation.”
Ellis said that over the years, Riverside Hospital offered medical services ranging from inpatient and outpatient care to substance abuse programs. That was until the hospital closed its doors in 2015.
“It had become a drug rehab center and there was some Medicaid fraud issues that led to the closure of this,” Ellis said. “It was boarded up, abandoned here for a long time.”
But now, there’s hope to breathe new life into the building. Harris County Commissioners Court approved a plan to acquire and repurpose the hospital.
They made a roughly $200 million investment to renovate the space and offer a variety of wraparound services, including ACCESS Harris County, which connects people with transportation assistance, food, and financial assistance, as well as housing and shelter resources.
“We’re moving the Harris County Health Department to this site,” Ellis said.
The hospital and its history are close to Ellis’ heart as well, because he said he was born there.
He said the plan is to reopen on the last day of Black History Month.
“Here in the shadows of the largest, most prestigious medical center in the world, there are many people who don’t have access to healthcare,” Ellis said. “This building will be a part of that package to give people who can’t afford great health insurance like we have, that they too ought to be respected and can come here for services.”
That service was ultimately a big part of Ms. Booker’s life. She said she’s grateful that she and others will get the chance to walk down those halls, yet again.
“I will be there,” Booker said. “I will be there.”
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