San Felipe Hospital - Saint James Infirmary About up Page

About us

Opened it's doors November 15, 2002 became fully functional January 1 , 2003 and has been serving the people of Northern Baja California as a Non-Profit Hospital ever since.

If you would like to make a financial donation to our hospital please e-mail mailto:help@san-felipe-hospital.com?subject=Donation to Saint James Infirmary

En Español

History of Saint James Infirmary.

Caroline, my wife, and I built our first house in 1988 and a year later a second one for my parents. I met DR. Abasolo and he was living in a hovel. I was shocked. I went to where he worked and noted lots of donated equipment that didn’t work. He was practicing on the second story down town. I advised him to find a place where old gringos could enter. He did. I then advised him to get a female nurse to help him. He did. I then advised him to make his office look like a gringo office, again he did. I decided to make my donations to a private DR. because they would have a motive to keep the office and equipment in working order. He did, this included the first reliable X-ray in San Felipe. His practice grew as he was able to speak English as well.

I then watched helpless as non-equipped ambulances traveled 3 hours to get access to modern medical care. Modern medical care requires functioning and needed medical equipment. Then my friend Deano broke some ribs and my wife Caroline took an interesting ride with him in the ambulance. The ambulances were changed many times for different reasons (and he weighs well over two hundred kilos). No adequate pain medicine was available because of the war on drugs in US. I watched a patient friend of mine die of a myocardial infarction, who might have lived if he only had a shot of morphine, as pain will cause an infarction to extend.

God had given me money I should have used in His work, but I tried to buy toys instead, A large pleasure boat, in fact two boats. Coming back one night in a storm in the Straights of Ballinas, with a wife so sea sick I was worried about her life, I made a decision to do something I knew about with God's money that would serve a purpose in San Felipe.

I asked Dr Abasolo if he would get a narcotics license. I would build a modern hospital for all the doctors in San Felipe. He went to Mexecali for the license and the woman said, "why"? He answered, "Because we are building a hospital in San Felipe". She replied, "I did not see your application". He said, "WHAT"? So we started down the road to get proper permits, very quietly. Once obtained, we began to build a hospital.

My wife designed the hospital in 1 and ½ hours where two architects failed at five thousand a piece. We were building the hospital when we received a delegation of Drs. whose names I do not remember. They came to my house and demanded money or they would stop me. I showed them our permit and they faded away. The staff membership was open to all MDs in the area. They did not join for reasons I don’t understand. Maybe it was due to the fact that they would be operating on a private fee for service basis and were required to stand the duty in the ER. Anyhow if you have seen the hospital you will know what we offer and intend to offer.

The reason; I remembered Gods’ saying “it is harder to get thru the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter Heaven”, the widows mite and many more. The Holy Spirit convicted me using James Miller as agent. I watched him very carefully, dying of thyroid cancer, build a house of God and staff it with people that had never before actively worked for a church. I found more peace and joy in this little active church than with any of my toys.

I thought about building a church, but realized the building was not the Church but rather the body of believers—So I and my wife, the Sunday school teacher, decided to use our money to build a hospital and name it after the man who carefully and patiently led me back to those things that are of true value. We also watched his wife Margaret Miller support and help him all the way. She showed great faith by not crawling into a hole after her loss, But began to help the community and sit on our board and help in any way she could. Therefore the hospital is dedicated to the memory of James Miller and in honor of Margaret Miller.

An interesting foot note: as we sold our stock and put the money into the hospital, the price of the stock fell to almost nothing yet we had a hospital, makes you wonder at it.

The hospital has been built and mostly equipped. Fees are necessary to maintain the high standards of care and to continue serving the public with modern medicine at a proximal location.

Letters of Thanks

Some Feedback off the website

I was a patient at St. James Infirmary for 2.5 days and I have
never received better treatment from any medical institution here or in the states. Your staff was polite and efficient, not only did they care for me while in the hospital, but I received numerous phone calls once I left the hospital. I was very pleased with my services from St. James
----------- Glenda