SCRANTON -- An area center for people with special needs may have found a silver lining in a hospital closure from earlier this year. St. Joseph's Center in Scranton received an unexpected gift from a now closed hospital that used to bear the same name.
The statue of Saint Joseph has looked over thousands of patients in its lifetime. First, in the chapel of a hospital in Lackawanna County, and now it’s found a new home. Welcoming people who walk into St. Joseph's Center in Scranton.
“That statue that was present at St. Joseph's hospital and later Marian Community Hospital in Carbondale for so many years would be brought here to St. Joseph's Center in Scranton, is very fitting and I'm happy it found its home here,” said Sr. Mary Alice Jacquinot of the St. Joseph’s Center.
Marian Community Hospital in Carbondale which used to be called St. Joseph's closed earlier this year, the last catholic hospital in Lackawanna County. Officials there thought some of the supplies should not go to waste.
The statue and hundreds of thousands of dollars of supplies and furniture found their way to the center with a similar name.
St. Joseph's Center received more than 20 beds from Marian Community Hospital, some with specialized mattresses that would have cost the center about $700 a piece.
“We are able to use these mattresses which help prevent break downs and things like that are much more comfortable than the ones that we had, so it really was like Christmas coming getting all those things, it was a real blessing to be honest,” said Mary Ellen Desiderio of the St. Joseph’s Center.
Those blessings include the beds and some specialized recliners for the St. Joe's residents and chairs for the waiting rooms, things that officials at St. Joe's said they would never be able to afford all at once.