Union Hospital is the oldest voluntary community hospital in the Bronx, and one of the oldest medical facilities in the City of New York. In 1909. the pastors of five Fordham area churches, Catholic and Protestant, joined efforts to build a hospital which would provide medical care to community residents. St. Francis Hospital and a Jewish affiliated Hospital were the only two institutions serving an ever-increasing number of Bronx residents at the turn of the century. The custom of the time dictated that people requiring hospitalization enter only those facilities conducted by members of the same religious sect. This presented a formidable problem for Fordham area protestants. The old Lutheran Hospital in Washington Heights was their closest source of medical care. History records that patients made this arduous journey to Manhattan on Schildwachter Company Ice or Coal Wagons. Member so the Schildwachter family were among the original founders and benefactors of Union Hospital. This prominent family now operates the schildwachter Oil Company.

Union Hospital, originally known as Fordham Union Hospital, had its beginnings in a small, three-story wood frame Victorian building containing 25 beds on the corner or East 188th Street and Valentine Avenue, the site of the current hospital property. The Hospital received its charter in February 1910 and under the medical direction of Dr. William Kahrs, began to meet the health care needs of community residents. Beds were donated by benefactors of the Hospital. Physicians supplied their own medical instruments and furniture.

The first two floors of the present 201-bed facility were erected in 1923, the year the Hospital was incorporated as "Union Hospital Association of the Bronx." The third and fourth floors were added in 1940. In 1966 a new four-floor wing consisting of a self-contained obstetrical service, new operating and recovery rooms and an expanded emergency room was completed. In addition, the Hospital's power plant and certain radiology areas were established in the new wing.

In 1984, in observance of the Hospital's 75th anniversary, and to further demonstrate its commitment to providing Bronx residents with quality health care, the Board of Trustees and Administration of the Hospital launched a $16 million building and modernization program. This expansion project included the addition of a fifth floor housing intensive care and coronary care units to the existing facility; enlarging the emergency room by adding two trauma/critical care areas, a fracture area, two enclosed examination rooms, an observation room and an X-ray suite exclusively for emergency room patients; replacing mechanical equipment as well as constructing an enclosed parking lot to accommodate 187 cars.

These new facilities were designed to contain two-bedded and private rooms, all fitted with state-of-the-art medical equipment, audiovisual nurse communication and telephone, television and air conditioning systems. The new facilities were inspected and received full approval from the New York State Department of Health in 1988. The modernization program was also instrumental in establishing the Ambulatory Care Center. This addition increased Union Hospital's ability to address the needs of an ever-increasing outpatient population. Until the mid 1970's, Fordham and Morrisania Hospitals provided much of the emergency service and outpatient clinic care for Fordham residents.

The closing of both of these institutions prompted Union to reassess its resources and capabilities, and shift its focus accordingly. In July 1988, Union Hospital was accepted as a beneficiary Hospital of the United Hospital Fund of New York.

Expansion of the Maternity Programs

In recognition of the high quality and scope of the maternity program conducted by Union Hospital, New York State Department of Health awarded the Hospital a special grant to establish the Women's, Infants and Children (WIC) Program in 1989. The WIC Program is intended to provide supplemental funds to ensure proper nutrition for pregnant women, nursing mothers, newborn infants and in some cases, pre-school children. Recipients of Public Assistance and members of low income families are eligible for this program.

Union Hospital also participates in the Prenatal Care Assistance Program (PCAP). The purpose of this program is to design means to reach out into the community in order to attract pregnant women. The goal is to bring them into the health care system as early in their pregnancies as possible in the hope of reducing the unusually high levels of high-risk deliveries, premature births, and neonatal deaths which are endemic in the community which Union Hospital serves.

In 1990, Union Hospital underwent a restructuring through a management contract signed with St. Barnabas Hospital and approved by the New York State Department of Health. Through this agreement, the St. Barnabas/Union Hospital health care network increases the accessibility of quality health care to the surrounding communities.

In 2000, the Union Hospital facility became the Union Community Health Center, an outpatient diagnostic and treatment center for the residents of the community. In 2006, the Board of Directors voted to sever its administrative ties with St. Barnabas, though the two facilities continue to work together to provide the highest quality of care for their shared patients.