Hospital: 60 years of health care

The East Adams Rural Hospital is celebrating 60 years of service on Saturday, April 7. In honor of this occasion, the hospital is hosting an anniversary party on Tuesday, April 10 from 4-7 p.m. at the hospital.

The history of the hospital is to be highlighted through a slide show and scrapbooks at the event. Refreshments are to be served and tours are scheduled throughout the evening. A Medstar helicopter is going to be present at the event.

During the month of April, EARH is hosting a food drive for the Food Pantry and donations can be dropped off at the clinic lobby. EARH hopes to fill the new ambulance with food donations for the local food bank.

The physical hospital structure came to be in 1952, widely touted as one of the greatest accomplishments for the rural community of Ritzville and the surrounding area.

The following is a recap of the facility’s construction and dedication.

Adams County public hospital district commissioners announced on Friday, Feb. 17, 1952 that the tentative opening date for the new $300,000 Adams County Memorial, is March 15. The secretary, Edward D. Cross, for the hospital board of commissioners, made the announcement.

The Adams County public hospital district commissioners at the time of the hospital opening are Henry D. Thiel of Ritzville, Earl Snyder of Washtucna and Delbert Pence of Lind. The board plans to meet on Feb. 28 for what they hope is the final inspection of the facility.

Once the inspection is approved and completed, it takes two weeks to move in the furniture and supplies, an estimated $42,000 inventory.

The hospital is to be managed by Ben Naab, the current manager of the Ritzville General Hospital. The registered nurses already hired are Theresa Conner, Elvera Lenhart and Thelma Druffel.

Practical nurses are Marianna Grunte, Ruth Persto, Pearl Westlake, Minnie Lofgren and Dot Stevens. All are currently employed at Ritzville General Hospital.

A three-woman kitchen crew consists of Marie Kramer, Agnes Adams and Kate Walenta. John Arnst serves as the janitor, Elizabeth Streeter as the clean-up woman and Edith Liming is the receptionist.

The hospital building has been acclaimed by the state health department as “one of the finest if not the best hospital structure of its type in the entire state.”

The commissioners agreed on Feb. 17 to purchase a small, specialized refrigerator for the storage of blood at the hospital. The blood can be administered immediately and is free of charge to Adams county residents, minus the cost of administrating it.

With the addition of the new hospital, the major concern for Ritzville citizens is the decision to be made with the existing hospital building that has been used as a hospital for 10 years. The General hospital originally served as a residence for Dr. Oliver Morehead, before being purchased, renovated and enlarged in order to serve as a hospital. It’s current estimated value, in 1952, is $25,000.

The Adams County Memorial hospital will be formally dedicated on Sunday, April 6, with a ceremony followed by an open house event. Patients are to be moved from the previous hospital into the Memorial hospital on Monday, April 7.

The Rev. Alfred Carter, pastor of the Trinity Methodist church in Ritzville, delivers the dedicatory address for the event beginning at 2 p.m.

The total cost of the completed project, including equipment is about $350,000. The new hospital is a one-story brick building built in the form of a “T” along Adams Street between Ninth and Tenth avenues on College Hill in Ritzville.

The hospital includes 20 beds for patients, two additional beds for maternity cases, five cribs and eight bassinettes in the nursery, operating and obstetrics rooms, kitchen and employee’s dining room, x-ray facilities and laboratories, and storage space for blood reserves.

In a full page advertisement printed in the April 3, 1952, edition of the Journal-Times, the hospital listed new additions to the community since the end of World War II. Among those listed are the American Legion Memorial Hall, modern sewage treatment plant, Marcellus Grange Hall, a new grade school, a new Methodist church, an athletic field lighting system and the completion of a 9-hole golf course.

In an editorial published in the April 3 edition of the Journal-Times, written by the publisher Bruce A. Wilson, he congratulates Thiel, Snyder, Pence and Cross on the success of completing Washington State’s finest hospital in the Ritzville community. The said occupations of the hospital commissioner’s at the time of the hospital opening were a hardware man, a rancher, a retired rancher and an attorney.

Wilson mentions the commissioner’s choice to pay for services from a Spokane firm called Northwest Hospital Consultants, and believes that this decision saved the Adams County public health district a considerable amount of money. Wilson continues on to mention and recognize the man who started the hospital district 10 years ago, David Hoefel, and thanked the dedicated men and women who helped Hoefel start the operation.

An estimated 250 persons attended the dedicatory ceremonies and open house event on April 6. Cross spoke at the event and about the 15-month process of building and completing the hospital. A Lind and Washtucna ambulance were also presented at the event.

The last patient to be admitted to the Ritzville General Hospital and the first patient admitted into the Adams County Memorial hospital is Mrs. Zula Friesinger, who entered the new hospital at 2 p.m. on April 7. The last baby arriving in the General hospital was Randal James Schoesler, born to James and Marilyn Schoesler on April 3.

By the beginning of May 1952, the Adams County Memorial hospital was fully equipped to perform most types of minor and major surgeries. Nearly $15,000 had been spent on instruments and surgical facilities to provide the hospital with one of the best operating rooms in the Pacific Northwest.

With the completion of the facilities, the hospital has a suspended, modern, flexible, operating spotlight that could be moved easily to assist with surgeries.

The operating room also included a sterilizer that could quickly sterilize any instrument being used in the surgery.

The x-ray room is equipped with high-speed controls that allows x-rays to be taken quicker, which is helpful with children, Naab said. Altogether, about $7,000 worth of operating instruments has been provided for the Ritzville hospital and another $7-8,000 worth of operating facilities.

Mrs. Jean Hauck, a specially trained surgical nurse and anesthetist, served as the superintendent of nurses and as the lead surgical nurse.

The anesthetist for the hospital was Miss Nellie Haener, who worked at Sacred Heart hospital in Spokane as an anesthetist for a year before coming to Ritzville.