Saint Francis Hospital

For the longest time, there were only a couple of hospitals in Colorado Springs, which is crazy because this city's footprint is enormous and there are half a million people in the metro area.  There's Memorial Hospital, which is next door to the Olympic Training Center, in the heart of the city. And there's Penrose Hospital, which is in the Old North End, near my studio.  Well the Old North End ain't exactly "north" anymore if you look at a map of Colorado Springs. In fact, both of these hospitals are pretty damn far from where the most explosive growth has been in the last 15 to 20 years, and only getting farther as our city stretches more and more out to the prairie.  So if you happened to live in our heavily populated northeast side, you had quite a drive (or ambulance ride) if you needed medical attention.

All of that changed a couple of years ago when the new Saint Francis Hospital was built at Woodmen Road and Powers Boulevard.  For many years there was a smaller Saint Francis Hospital (in fact our city's first hospital) over by the School for the Deaf and the Blind, near my house, but since the 1990s it has slowly closed down -- these days, as far as I know, it sits empty.  This new, gigantic Saint Francis facility has completely replaced it.  I've never had the occasion to go in there since I'm amply served by either Memorial or Penrose, but when I had stomach surgery last year, my surgeon had offices in one of the auxiliary buildings of the new hospital (the surgery actually took place at Penrose).  Whenever I went to see my surgeon, I'd see this giant statue of Saint Francis in the parking lot and vow to take a picture of him for you. He only looks good in morning light though, and it's a VERY rare occurrence for me to be way over on the east side in the A.M.!  I finally managed it the other day, so here you go.  Saint Francis in all his glory, ready to take care of you if you need him.