History
More Than a Century of Compassionate Care in Western North Carolina
In 2017, Sisters of Mercy Urgent Care became Mercy Urgent Care. Under the simplified name of Mercy Urgent Care, our organization continues its 100+ year tradition of meeting the healthcare needs of individuals and families. Still a sponsored ministry of the Sisters of Mercy, Mercy Urgent Care is the only dedicated nonprofit urgent care network in the region, providing an alternative to hospital emergency rooms for the treatment of non-life-threatening illness and injury.
From Dublin, Ireland to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina
The Sisters of Mercy, an international religious institute of Roman Catholic women, has been touching lives and evolving to meet community needs across the world since its founding in 1831 in Dublin, Ireland by Catherine McAuley (1778–1841).
By the mid-1800s the Sisters of Mercy had begun to expand across the Atlantic and around the world to include Asheville, where in 1900, the Sisters opened an 18-bed tuberculosis sanitarium. The Sisters of Mercy ultimately established and operated one of the area’s largest hospitals, the 338-bed St. Joseph’s Hospital, for nearly 100 years until its sale to Mission Hospitals in 1998.
Compassionate Care at Eight Mercy Urgent Care Centers in the Mountains
During the era in which the Sisters of Mercy owned and operated St. Joseph’s Hospital, the organization opened, and expanded, a network of urgent care facilities that thrive as Mercy Urgent Care today.
Sisters of Mercy Services acquired its first urgent-care facility in south Asheville in 1985, and opened a Weaverville location to serve northern Buncombe County in 1993. 2009 marked the opening of the flagship, 15,000 square-foot urgent care facility and corporate office on Patton Avenue in west Asheville, followed by the opening of the Brevard location in the same year.
In 2011, Sisters of Mercy Urgent Care Brevard acquired Frances Warde Family Health, a primary-care clinic (formerly located in nearby Rosman). In 2016, Mercy Urgent Care opened its fifth urgent care center on Tunnel Road/U.S. Highway 70, serving east Asheville, Swannanoa and Black Mountain. A sixth location opened in Burnsville in 2018, followed by a seventh location, Mercy Urgent Care Foothills, which opened in Columbus in 2019. The eighth, and most recent location, opened in Waynesville in early 2020.
A History of Service Continues: Mercy Around the World
The Institute of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas is an international community of Roman Catholic women who dedicate their lives to the Gospel of Jesus and take vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and service. Inspired by the life of Jesus and by their founder Catherine McAuley, they care for those who suffer from poverty, sickness and limited access to education with a special concern for women and children. Today, more than 2,900 Sisters of Mercy of the Americas make a difference in the lives of others in North, South and Central America, the Caribbean, Guam and the Philippines.
The Sisters of Mercy, South Central Community is one of the six Sisters of Mercy communities in the Americas, and it encompasses a vast geographic area that includes 18 of the United States (including North Carolina), plus Guam and Jamaica. Locally, through Mercy Urgent Care, the Community promotes the healing ministry of Jesus through Mercy Urgent Care, Mercy Occupational Medicine, Frances Warde Family Health and the Catherine McAuley MERCY Foundation.