The clinic that stayed: the Sister Maura Brannick Health Center

Founded October 1986 — 326 Chapin Street

A nurse's clinic for the uninsured: When the Catholic hospital left South Bend in 2009, one of its works stayed, and it stands in this record as the Saint Joseph presence the city kept. Sister Maura Brannick, C.S.C. (1923–2019), was a Holy Cross sister and a nurse — twenty-six years of nursing in her congregation's hospitals, St. Joseph's of South Bend among them, then pastoral care at St. Joseph Regional Medical Center, then outreach to the sick and elderly of the near west side, checking blood pressures and blood sugars on the street before she had a room to do it in. In October 1986, with the medical center's sponsorship, the first West Washington Street Health Center opened in a converted garage of some four hundred square feet — a clinic for the people the rest of the system did not reach: residents of St. Joseph County at or below two hundred percent of the poverty line who had no Medicare, no Medicaid, and no insurance.

The clinic moved in February 1988 to its Chapin Street home; the present building, ten thousand square feet at 326 Chapin Street at Western Avenue, was dedicated in December 1998; and in October 2006 the center took its founder's name, the Sister Maura Brannick Health Center. Its staffing is the city's volunteerism at documented size: a small paid staff whose salaries the medical center carries, and physicians and nurses who give their time — seventy physicians donating time in the Tribune's accounting of 2001, and some 1,300 people served in the Global Sisters Report's account of 2015. Sister Maura's work was honored in her lifetime at the size the record gives it: a Thousand Points of Light award from President George H. W. Bush, presented aboard Air Force One in 1991.

She died on 18 October 2019. The center endures under the departed hospital's license: the Indiana Department of Health's 2025 consumer report lists the Sr. Maura Brannick Health Center, 326 Chapin Street, South Bend, among the services operated under the Mishawaka hospital's license — the sisters' hospital gone from the city, its clinic for the uninsured still at work on the near west side.

Sources:

1. Today's Catholic, obituary of Sister Maura Brannick, C.S.C. (23 October 2019) — her nursing and pastoral-care course, the October 1986 sponsorship of the West Washington Street Health Center, the February 1988 Chapin Street relocation, the present center's dedication in December 1998, and the October 2006 renaming.
2. Catholic Health World (Catholic Health Association), 1 July 2013, and Global Sisters Report, 6 January 2015 — the clinic's founding purpose and eligibility, the converted garage of 400 square feet, the volunteer staffing and the medical center's carrying of salaries and costs, the Points of Light presentation aboard Air Force One, and some 1,300 people served.
3. South Bend Tribune, Michiana Torchbearers series (2001), as preserved in the Mishawaka-Penn Public Library record — seventy physicians donating time at the clinic; the 13 October 2006 renaming date as the Tribune's 2008 account gives it.
4. Indiana Department of Health, Hospital Consumer Report for Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center (2025) — the Sr. Maura Brannick Health Center, 326 Chapin Street, South Bend, listed under the Mishawaka hospital's license.