Boston Meical Center (BMC) is a non-profit 581-bed medical center in Boston, Massachusetts. It was created by the formal merger of Boston City Hospital (BCH) and Boston University Medical Center Hospital (BUMCH) in July 1996. BCH was founded in 1855, and BUMCH in 1864 as the first municipal hospital in the United States. It has the largest 24-hour Level I trauma center in New England, and the Emergency Department had more than 120,000 visits in 2005. BMC's self-stated mission is to "provide consistently excellent and accessible health services to all in need of care regardless of status and ability to pay." In 2005, Boston Medical Center provided more than $294 million in free care to uninsured patients.