July 26, 2003|By Jacques Kelly | Jacques Kelly,SUN STAFF
Sister Mary Thomas Zinkand, RSM, a nun who led the transformation of an antiquated Calvert Street hospital into downtown Baltimore's Mercy Medical Center, died of a stroke Thursday at the institution she served for more than five decades. She was 88.
In her 35 years as the hospital's president, Sister Thomas turned a gloomy infirmary into a thriving modern hospital by rebuilding its plant and enlarging its trustee board to include people outside the Roman Catholic faith. She insisted that her hospital turn no one away.
FOR THE RECORD - A photo caption with the obituary of Sister Mary Thomas Zinkand in Saturday's editions referred to Barry Bress as president of Mercy Health Center. Bress is a vice president of NeighborCare, the pharmacy company. Thomas R. Mullen is president of Mercy Health Services.
The Sun regrets the errors.
"She was truly an angel of mercy," said William Donald Schaefer, who knew her while mayor, governor and comptroller. "Every November my mother would get sick, but as soon as she'd see Sister Mary Thomas, she would change and get better. Sister just lit up a room."
"We've lost one of Baltimore's best," said Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski. "She had great wit, determination, compassion. She was a friend of the famous and a friend of the police officer and firefighter brought to Mercy's emergency room. She was a friend to the new mother who needed advice and encouragement. She was a friend to the old-timers who needed comfort and compassion as well as care."
Sister Thomas often advised the senator on ways to make health care policy more accessible and affordable, Senator Mikulski said. "On one occasion when my mother was admitted to Mercy Hospital, I had an amendment on the floor to improve Medicare. I asked Sister Thomas if I should stay at my mother's bedside. She told me, `Go to Washington and save Medicare. Leave your mother to God and the Sisters of Mercy, and we will save her.'"
Born Rita Zinkand in Baltimore and raised on Hamilton's Bayonne Avenue, she attended St. Dominic Parochial School and was a 1933 Seton High School graduate. She studied nursing at Mercy School of Nursing and at Mount St. Agnes College. She earned a master's degree in hospital administration from St. Louis University.
She entered the Sisters of Mercy in 1945 and was assigned to the pediatrics department in what was then a dark Victorian building at Calvert and Saratoga streets. In recent years she said that working with infants and children was her "first love."
She soon rose to become director of nursing and assistant administrator. In 1953 she was named the hospital's president, a post she held until 1959 and again from 1963 to 1992. For the past 11 years she remained as president emeritus and often made daily visits to patients' rooms and medical treatment areas.
"I was in awe of her dedication. She was there 24 hours a day, seven days a week," said Thomas R. Mullen, Mercy Medical Center president. "She lived Mercy."
In the mid-1950s, Sister Thomas faced the most difficult decision of her career: whether to keep the hospital in downtown Baltimore or to move it to the suburbs. In a 1999 oral history, she said she found inspiration in the beliefs of her order's founder, Catherine McAuley, who believed her nuns should care for the less fortunate. She decided to keep the institution on Calvert Street, but to build a better hospital.
"She was a model as an administrator and as a human being," said Hal Smith, the director of Catholic Charities. "When people showed up when it was cold, and maybe faking heart attacks, she would serve them. She felt it was the hospital's responsibility to care. We could use about 10 more Sister Thomases in Baltimore today."
In 1958 she and her fellow sisters broke ground on a new hospital, a 18-story tower facing St. Paul Place. In 1967, the Mercy board of trustees was enlarged to include members outside the Roman Catholic faith. Under her tenure the hospital opened neighborhood centers in South Baltimore, Little Italy and Northeast Baltimore.
"Sister Thomas was a real leader in deciding to stay downtown and making her board see its role as a downtown hospital," said the Greater Baltimore Committee's Walter Sondheim. "She played a significant role in turning a small hospital into a modern one with assets that serve the entire region."
In the face of rising medical costs, she insisted that the hospital serve the poor.
"Her mark was her passion to make quality health care available to the underserved and underprivileged," said Maryland Health and Mental Hygiene Secretary Nelson Sabatini. "She was an amazing woman. She was the kind of person who would walk the stairwells and pick up a cigarette butt."
He recalled the day he received his appointment to the State Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. "She called and said, `It's totally inappropriate for a health secretary to be a smoker. We run cessation programs. You will be there.'"
The health secretary replied: "Yes, Sister."
Friends described her as humble, gracious, sincere and warm, but someone who functioned with full executive power.
