The Lowell Free Hospital Association was founded in May 1891. James Fellows funded the purchase of the Fay mansion in the
Pawtucketville neighborhood with a $30,000 donation, and in July 1893, Lowell General Hospital opened. In the first year, the Lowell General Hospital Training School for Nurses started. LGH Nurses responded to the Spanish Influenza outbreak, which struck Lowell particularly hard, in November 1918. The epidemic killed several hundred people in the city. In the twentieth century, the hospital underwent several expansions, with a building dedicated to the Nursing School, and a Maternity and Children's Building. In 2012, Lowell General merged with
Saints Medical Center, adding a second campus to the hospital, and consolidating hospital care in the city under the Lowell General Hospital name. The hospital, now one of the largest institutions in the Merrimack Valley, has 407 beds. Saints Medical Center itself has a long history in Lowell, itself formed by the 1992 merger of St. Joseph's Hospital and St. John's Hospital. St. Joseph's Hospital, the oldest in the city, had been founded as Lowell Corporation Hospital in 1839. ==Magnet designation==