Short answers, pulled from the story.
The word hospital originates from the Latin term for stranger, signifying that these institutions were originally designed as places of hospitality for the foreigner and the guest. In the ancient world, these facilities functioned as almshouses for the poor, hostels for pilgrims, or schools for the sick before the concept of specialized medical care existed.
The earliest general hospital in the Islamic world was constructed in 805 in Baghdad by Harun Al-Rashid. By the 10th century, Baghdad had expanded to include five more hospitals, while Damascus boasted six hospitals by the 15th century, and Córdoba alone maintained 50 major hospitals by the end of that same century.
Florence Nightingale founded the Nightingale School for Nurses, which opened in 1860 with the mission of training nurses to work in hospitals, to work with the poor, and to teach. Nightingale was instrumental in reforming the nature of the hospital by improving sanitation standards and changing the image of the hospital from a place the sick would go to die to an institution devoted to recuperation and healing.
In the United States, the number of hospitalizations grew to its peak in 1981 with 171 admissions per 1,000 Americans and 6,933 hospitals. This trend subsequently reversed, with the number of US hospitals shrinking from 6,933 in 1981 to 5,534 in 2016.
The Catholic Church is the largest non-government provider of health care services in the world, with around 18,000 clinics, 16,000 homes for the elderly and those with special needs, and 5,500 hospitals. In 2010, the Church's Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Health Care Workers said that the Church manages 26% of the world's health care facilities.