The Order of the Ursuline Sisters of Mary Immaculate (UMI), a religious congregation, took over the Holy Family Hospital in 1978. The Order was founded by Sister Brigida Morello in Piacenza, Italy, in 1649. Though it was the Congregation's original aim to educate young women who had no access to education, its mission expanded in India to include diverse forms of service - medical, social and pastoral.
They arrived in Kerala in 1934 to uplift weaker sections of society in the Malabar region and also ran dispensaries and visited patients at home. This was the UMI's foray into medical services. This new vision culminated in the setting up of the Congregation's first major hospital in India - Mariampur in Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, in 1961.
While the UMI opened other medical institutions across the country, they took over the administration of the Holy Family Hospital in Bandra, Mumbai , from the Medical Mission Sisters in 1978. Overseeing this transfer of management and continuing to play a pivotal role in its growth and expansion was Mother Maria Giovanna Alberoni. She was the first UMI Sister to pursue medical studies in India. It was she, along with Sister Bernadina Poomthottam, Msgr Nereus Rodrigues, Dr Faust Pinto and Dr Eustace de Souza, who guided the hospital from a 22-bed nursing home to a full-fledged multi-specialty institution and medical research centre.