|
OPINIONS
February 21, 2019 |
 |
Aerial photo of original Johnston Memorial Hospital and the nurses' dormitory on the right, shortly after the hospital opened in late 1951. (from Heritage Center archives)
 Wingate Lassiter |
Hospital's recovery from
the early 1980s another local success
story
Johnston Health's recent run of national accolades for its public hospitals at Smithfield and Clayton sends me back to a time when Johnston Memorial Hospital's future was uncertain.
I came across a perspective piece I wrote not long before I gave up my position as editor of The Smithfield Herald in 1994. It covers what I'd like to share with the Sun's readers in 2019. Here are the opening paragraphs of that column as it appeared in the Herald a quarter-century ago:
I began attending monthly meetings of Johnston Memorial Hospital's Board of Trustees in the late 1970s. The hospital had fallen on hard times, its administration befuddled by an increasingly competitive marketplace for health-care services.
Facilities were fast becoming outmoded; patient services lagged far behind competing hospitals in Raleigh, Wilson, and Goldsboro; and next to nothing was being done to recruit new physicians to keep more patients from fleeing the county.
Johnston's County Commissioners responded to the crisis with a $7.5-million bond issue to begin a building modernization program at Johnston Memorial. The county's voters responded favorably, and architects went to work.
Then came the bombshell: Johnston Memorial in 1982 lost its accreditation from the national Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals.
The situation seemed so critical that some advocated selling the county-owned hospital to one of several national companies that were buying hospitals right and left at the time.
But cooler heads prevailed, and a compromise was reached. Instead of selling Johnston Memorial, the county decided to employ a national company to manage its administration. In December 1982, the hospital's trustees awarded the contract to HCA Management Company, a division of the Hospital Corporation of America.
That was the turning point....
The Smithfield hospital has climbed many hills of progress over the past 36-plus years. Today there's a new state-of-the-art facility in service next to the original Johnston Memorial Hospital (which opened in late 1951). Physicians of many specialties are now based here. Clinics equipped to treat cancer and other difficult illnesses are located here as well, providing treatments that used to require a trip to Raleigh and beyond.
And, most recently, Johnston Memorial has been "re-branded" as Johnston Health, affiliated with UNC Health Care along with a second hospital opened not long ago at fast-growing Clayton.
It's quite a contrasting situation from the distressing trend of smaller, isolated hospitals closing their doors in rural communities to the east of us. Yes, we're fortunate to be closer to the dynamic metropolitan areas just west of here. But we've also been blessed with leadership that took some bold steps in years gone by to make sure our medical community could first survive and then thrive in a national health-care environment that too often has us shaking our heads in frustration and shame.
A PLACE FOR OPINIONS
Any American newspaper worth its salt has an "editorial page" --- a place where its readers may voice their opinions alongside the point of view of its editor. The Smithfield Weekly Sun will continue that long-standing tradition to provide a public forum for the printed word. We will limit the content to concerns of local interest, and we will only publish signed (and verified) "letters to the editor." We do request that your submissions be in digital form, transmitted to us via e-mail sent to wingate.lassiter@hometownheritage.com.
RETURN TO THE SMITHFIELD WEEKLY SUN FRONT PAGE