By Gloria Lloyd
News Editor
news3@callnewspapers.com

Mercy officials originally said they thought they would keep the name of St. Anthony’s Medical Center after acquiring it last year, but they’ve changed their minds and the hospital is changing names.

St. Anthony’s Medical Center will operate under the new name “Mercy Hospital South” as of Oct. 1, Mercy officials announced Wednesday.

The St. Anthony’s Board of Directors approved the name change earlier this month and employees learned of the decision at a series of recent town-hall meetings, the hospital said in a news release.

The new name follows the standards Mercy set when it adopted a common identity and logo across its seven-state hospital system. All of its existing hospitals are named “Mercy Hospital” followed by a geographic designation.

At the time that St. Anthony’s and Mercy held a community roundtable last year on the acquisition, hospital officials had not yet made the final call on what the newly acquired hospital would be called.

The south county hospital has been known as St. Anthony’s for nearly its entire 40-year existence, since it moved to south county from south city. There it was originally called St. Boniface.

Last August, officials had the idea that the name could likely change to St. Anthony’s Mercy Medical Center. After that, it could either stay as St. Anthony’s or possibly change to just Mercy after five years, said Mercy Vice President of Mission & Ethics Tom Edelstein.

If the hospital did get a new name, Mercy officials believed it would change to Mercy South County. That would be in line with Mercy Hospital St. Louis, formerly known as St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, and the Mercy hospitals in Joplin and Springfield.

“For now and the foreseeable future, the name is St. Anthony’s Mercy,” Edelstein said. “Who knows if it’ll ever change?”

In the announcement of the name change, however, Mercy Chief Operating Officer and St. Anthony’s President Mike McCurry said the decision was in line with how Mercy names the rest of its hospitals.

“Moving forward with the name change signifies that we stand together as a united ministry, both in mission and now in name,” McCurry said in a statement. “As a cornerstone of our identity, the Mercy name signifies a commitment to provide a unique, consistent and high-quality experience everywhere we provide care.”