Shriners Hospitals: Improving the Lives of Children

How did they start?

Shriners Hospitals for Children is an international hospital system with 18 orthopaedic hospitals, three burn hospitals and one hospital providing orthopaedic, burn and spinal cord care, located throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico.

All 22 Shriners Hospitals are dedicated to providing expert, specialized care to children under 18 years of age absolutely free of charge. Shriners Hospitals are actively involved in orthopaedic and burn research and have been pioneers in some of the most advanced techniques for the treatment of these conditions.

Since its founding, the Shriners have always supported charitable activities, and in the early 1900s, when the Shriners became a truly international organization, desire grew for the Shriners to establish its own official philanthropy.

Shriners at the 1919 Imperial Council Session voted to establish a "Shriners Hospital for Children," to treat orthopaedic injuries and birth defects in children. It was to be supported by a yearly $2 assessment from each Shriner. After further research, it was determined that there should be not just one hospital, but a network of hospitals throughout North America. In 1921, the proposal was passed.

Why are they so special?

The first Shriners Hospital opened in Shreveport, La., in 1922, and by the end of that decade, 13 more hospitals were in operation. The number of orthopaedic hospitals eventually reached 19. Today, the orthopaedic Shriners Hospitals serve as major referral centers for complex and highly specialized orthopaedic treatments for children.

During the 1950s, Shriners found themselves able to provide additional services, and Shrine leaders, looking for other ways they could help children of North America, became aware of the lack of medical expertise in burn care. Each year, thousands of children are disfigured or killed by severe burns.

In the mid-1960s, the Shriners opened three hospitals specializing in burn care. Each of these specialized hospitals has a three-fold mission of helping children, conducting burn research and training medical personnel in the treatment of burns.

The Shriners burns hospitals are pioneers in burn treatment. They are actively involved in the development of innovative techniques that will continue to revolutionize the treatment of severely burned children.

In the early 1980s, the Shriners discovered yet another way it could help children: by opening the nation's first pediatric spinal cord injury center. Today, Shriners has pediatric spinal cord injury centers in the Philadelphia, Chicago and Sacramento hospitals. Young people with spinal cord injuries find not only the specialized medical care needed for rehabilitation, but also hope, inspiration and strength.

Today's research; tomorrow's care

Shriners Hospitals have been actively engaged in clinical research from the beginning, but in the early 1960s, the Shriners began earmarking funds for basic and clinical research. Since that time, Shriners Hospitals have been at the vanguard of orthopaedic and burn research.

The rules for all Shriners Hospitals are simple: Any child, up to the age of 18, can be admitted to a Shriners Hospital if, in the opinion of our doctors, the child can be helped by the specialized medical care provided at Shriners Hospitals.

Shriners Hospitals are open to all children without regard to financial ability or relationship to a Shriner.