Healthcare for all! State or church?

 Health Care for all, is it politics or the church that pulled this off?

Some argue that it was the church that established healthcare institutions and that politics made it possible for everyone to receive care; while there is truth to some of these claims, there are things that politicians overlook.

The word hospital comes from the Latin *hospitium*—a shelter for strangers. And that is exactly what it was.

From the 4th century onwards, it was the Christian church that built the first healthcare system in Europe.

The idea that every human being has inherent worth and deserves care—including the poor, strangers, and the incurably ill—stems directly from Christian theology. In the Roman Empire, by contrast, medical care was something one purchased privately.

Monasteries served as hospitals. The Rule of St. Benedict, dating back to the 6th century, stipulated that the care of the sick was to take precedence over all else. Monastic hospices existed in every major city.

The first true hospitals in Europe were built by the Church—such as Basil’s hospital in Caesarea (369), the Hôtel-Dieu in Paris (651), and Santo Spirito in Rome (1204).

The situation was the same in Sweden. Until the Reformation, the Church operated almost all *Helgeandshus* (houses of the Holy Spirit) and leper hospitals. After the reign of Gustav Vasa, the state took over many of these institutions, yet their operation often remained rooted in the Church.

In ancient times, you received medical care if you could afford a private physician. Monasteries turned this around.

The Rule of Saint Benedict, dating from the 6th century—which almost all monasteries in Europe followed—states quite plainly:

"Care of the sick must be placed before and above all else. They are to be served as if they were Christ himself."

So, in other words, both right and wrong—though politicians and people who aren't particularly fond of the church don't seem to really want to understand.

Monasteries were the first to provide systematic healthcare to the poor, and they did so for a thousand years before a state existed that was capable of doing it.