Aside from San Pedro Hospital, a Roman Catholic medical facility, and Brokenshire Integrated Health Ministries, Incorporated (BIHMI), a sanatorium run by the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP), the only other sectarian sickbay in Davao City is the Adventist Hospital—Davao, supervised by the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
The hospital started on June 1, 1966, as a 15-bed Davao Sanitarium and Hospital Clinic inside a leased building along Tionko Avenue, which also hosted the Davao Mission. The primary mission of the facility was to become the face of the sect’s medical ministry. It was launched with the aim of constructing a bigger facility on a two-hectare lot at Bangkal that the group acquired from the late Sen. Alejandro D. Almendras on May 23, 1966.
Due to a lack of personnel and fiscal constraints, the operation of the clinic was suspended for fifteen years (1968-83). It was later reopened as an extension of the Iligan-based Mindanao Sanitarium and Hospital (MSH) but only briefly (1984-86).
In 1987, the idea of an Adventist hospital was revived by opening a new clinic in Davao City known as the Davao Sanitarium and Hospital Urgent Health Care Center. Like the initial medical initiative, the new project had to hurdle trials but survived until March 1992 when its operation was again suspended.
Pushing the plan to build the dreamt hospital became more focused as the sect leaders pulled all the financial stops to gather sustainable money for its construction. For four years (1992-96), enlisting the support of church members became crucial. To amass funds, the prime movers sought the support of the Southern Asia-Pacific Division through solicitations, donations, and love offerings, both domestic and abroad.
Several personalities within the congregation were also enlisted to guide the project towards completion. From raising funds to buy equipment to identify the persons who would direct the hospital operations, the leaders of the South Philippine Union Conference (SPUC) and the Davao Mission launched a collective effort to finalize the details of the project until it is done.
In the first quarter of 1997, the center of attention turned with compliance of documents required for the hospital inspection, and its inauguration. A roster of personnel to supervise the facility was prepared and scrutinized. Finally, on June 6, 1997, a team from the health department in Manila conducted an ocular inspection of the Adventist Hospital-Davao. Four days later, the 34-bed facility obtained its license to operate as a secondary healthcare facility.
To steer the hospital on track eighteen physicians comprised the medical staff. The initial services being offered were major and minor surgeries, a special care nursery, an intensive care unit, emergency services, and ancillary amenities like a laboratory, radiology, pharmacy, outpatient clinics, well baby clinic and immunization, and a clinic for infertility and women’s diseases.
Moreover, the hospital initially had a staff for healthcare and auxiliary services composed of twelve registered nurses, two midwives, four nursing aides, two pharmacists, a pharmacy aide, three laboratory personnel, two licensed radiology technicians, a licensed nutritionist, a dietician, and two staff. In its first year of operation, a total of 5,783 patients were treated.
On January 1, 1998, the hospital got its Medicare accreditation. Improvements in terms of quality and service excellence, including human resources and upgrades in facilities and equipment, were slowly introduced. Through an endowment from the DMMA College of Southern Philippines, another edifice was built, which expanded the spaces for patients, clinics, laboratories, offices, an ophthalmology clinic, a cafeteria, and a dietary section.
