Sr. Ballance
Sr. Xavier Ballance, DC, who was instrumental in the creation of Ascension, one of the nation's largest Catholic nonprofit health care systems, died on Aug. 26 at Providence-Providence Park Hospital in Southfield, Mich., where she had been receiving hospice care for a short time.
Sr. Ballance was 82.
Sr. Ballance was board chair of the Daughters of Charity National Health System in St. Louis from 1997 to 1999. She was a member of the steering committee that created Ascension in 1999. Ascension's founding sponsors were the four provinces of the Daughters of Charity and the Sisters of St. Joseph in Nazareth, Mich., now part of the Congregation of St. Joseph.
She held a number of health care leadership roles in several states, according to information from some of the health care systems where she served. Among them, from 1975 to 1986, she served as president of then-Providence Hospital in Southfield, Mich. She helped purchase the land for the construction of Providence-Providence Park Hospital's campus in Novi, Mich.
She served as president and chief executive of St. Mary's Medical Center in Evansville, Ind., in 1986 and 1987. She later served as board chair of St. Mary's Health System there.
She returned to Providence Hospital as board chair from 1999 to 2010. Jean Meyer, St. John Providence Health System president and chief executive, said in a statement, "She was the heart and soul of Providence-Providence Park Hospital, and a dedicated servant leader for all of us at St. John Providence. Sister lived every day making positive contributions to our world."
Up until her recent health issues, Sr. Ballance maintained several board responsibilities, including a role within Ascension's Michigan market.
Sr. Ballance entered the Daughters of Charity in 1957, earning a bachelor's degree in nursing the same year at Saint Louis University. She later earned a master's in business administration in health care administration at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
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