The End of an Era - Alachua General Hospital Closes
Alachua General Hospital Closes
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Photo courtesy of the Alachua County Historic Trust, Matheson Museum, Inc.
The Alachua County Hospital opened in 1928. The new hospital had 58 beds, was warmed by steam heat, boasted hot and cold running water in all rooms, had a nursing staff of 25 and a medical staff of 12.
Alachua County Hospital opened its doors in 1928, and on November 1 those doors will close for good.
Citing losses in the millions, Shands at UF (which purchased Alachua General Hospital in 1996) announced last year that it would have to close Gainesville's first community hospital.
On the morning of the closure, Shands will open its new Cancer Center at UF."Clearly the decision to close AGH was the most difficult decision our board has made since I've been here at Shands Healthcare at the University of Florida," said Shands HealthCare CEO Tim Goldfarb in a Web broadcast on Shands.org.
Throughout the last five or six years, Goldfarb said, the board has struggled with the "AGH issue;" struggled to keep a financially viable operation going.
"From a business standpoint, it was not a difficult decision," he said. "It was difficult, almost entirely, based on the impact on our employees and our community and our respect for both."
Alachua General Hospital has been providing health services to area residents for more than 80 years. It has grown from a small community hospital to a 367-bed non-profit with more than 250 medical staff members representing 32 specialties. But prior to its arrival, private homes were used to treat area residents.
In October 1915, "The Daily Sun" ran a full-page advertisement that read, "Help! Help! Help! Everybody help Alachua County!" according to the book, "Proud of our Past Proud of our Future, The Story of Alachua General Hospital, Inc.," by Frank F. Rathbun. In those days, the closest modern hospital was in Jacksonville -- a five-hour train ride.
According to Rathbun's book, one of the best remembered of the early private hospitals was operated by Mrs. R. A. Williams from 1918 to 1929, in a residence at 405 N.E. 7th Street, then known as Roper Avenue.
The book goes on to say that most of the local physicians used the hospital. "Among them were Doctors J. Maxey Dell Sr., W. C. Thomas Sr. and Wilbur Lassiter, all of whom were to play a role in the continuing drive for a community hospital for the entire county."
Dr. William C. Thomas helped found Alachua General Hospital and later became chief of staff. In his long career, Thomas delivered 8,000 children. He continued to see patients until his death at the age of 81.
In 1928, Alachua County Hospital officially opened with 36 rooms and four wards with a total of 58 beds. According to Rathbun, the hospital was "warmed by steam heat and hot and cold running water in all rooms. One large and one small operating room were maintained, along with an up-to-date X-ray room with Dr. J. Maxey Dell Sr. in charge."
The hospital had a nursing staff of 25 and a medical staff of 12 and offered medical, surgical, obstetrical and emergency room care.
But emergency room services actually predated the opening of the hospital. Nurse Louise Simpson Bozarth tended to several severely injured car accident victims just days before the hospital opened, before beds were even set up.
"Nurse Bozarth is still remembered fondly for the record she held -- the first nurse to have made up a bed in Alachua General Hospital."
On January 16, 1928, the first baby was born in Alachua County Hospital: James O. Dailey. Dailey became a physician and practiced medicine for decades in Williston until his death in 2007.
Dr. Richard Anderson, too, was born in Alachua General Hospital. He joined AGH in 1962 and practiced medicine for 40 years until his retirement in 2002. Anderson saw many changes as the hospital grew during his long tenure.
"Alachua General was built in four stages," Anderson said in recent interview in his home in Gainesville. "There was the original hospital built in 1928, which was the one I was born in, and then an addition in 1943. The '28 and '43 buildings were demolished to make room for where the emergency room is now. Next was the '60 building, which still exists -- that's the so-called West Tower, or the Edwards Tower, as it was properly named.
"Where most activity takes place now is the Thomas Tower, which opened in September of '75, named for Dr. William C. Thomas, who delivered thousands of babies there, including me and my first son."
Anderson's career began long before there were CT Scans and MRIs; when colored lights signified the number of available beds in the hospital and when most of the hospital did not have air conditioning. But the hospital did have a family atmosphere, he said.
"I knew many of the employees there, and they knew me," Anderson said, "from the janitors on."
Many of the nurses who worked there when Anderson began his career were graduates of Alachua General Hospital's nursing school, he said.
In the early years, it was common for hospitals to provide living quarters for single female employees, especially nurses. AGH had a nurse's residence, "a three-story 150-foot by 40-foot structure with a stucco exterior and red asbestos shingle roof," according to Rathbun's book. That first class graduated in January 1946; the last class graduated in 1957, when the program was cancelled with the advent of the UF and Santa Fe Community College nursing programs.
"In those days the nurses were all women," Anderson recalled. "There weren't very many women physicians back then either. Now, many of the physicians are women and many of the nurses are men."
As far back as 1913, the seeds were sown for the volunteer program, when about 50 women gathered at Epworth Hall to formulate plans to build a hospital, writes Rathbun. Officers were elected and money raised to buy land on which the Alachua County Hospital was later built. But it would be another 40 years before the Alachua General Hospital Auxiliary -- the "Pink Ladies" -- would come into being. On July 23, 1953, the Auxiliary, 200 members-strong and clad in "cheerful cherry-red pinafore uniforms" opened the Coffee Shop on the south wing of the hospital. A beauty shop followed, as well as a scholarship fund and Gainesville's first hospice program.
Constance Keeton, director of volunteer and community resources for Shands, oversees 1,200 volunteers at any given time. When she began at AGH in 1999 she thought everyone was being nice to her because she was new. She soon discovered this was just the way the employees were at AGH.
"I think if you talk to anyone from Shands at AGH or Alachua General Hospital [depending upon their time spent there], they will remember the warmth and caring and patient-focused attention that everyone felt," Keeton said. "Like a big family."
Lorena and Bob McAlpine, both long-time members of the AGH Auxiliary, agreed.
"It was more of a family," Lorena said. "I hate to see it close. It does have such good history."
Lorena is the current president of the AGH Auxiliary. She started in 1979 and her husband Bob started in 1980. She said they tease each other about outlasting so many administrators.
"I got the honor of closing it down," Lorena said with disappointment in her voice. "What do you with 56 years of memorabilia? Dr. Barrow called and said the Matheson's Museum would be glad to give a space to store the scrapbooks. And Florence Van Arnam -- who has been with us for over 50 years -- has been a blessing to us, making places for some of our treasures."
Bob McAlpine was not the first male to work with the AGH Auxiliary, but he was the first to become president. The first man to join the ranks was Ron Bennett, who began in 1973. Nevertheless, the Auxiliary was still widely known as the "Pink Ladies."
"Ron said he wasn't pink and wasn't a lady," Lorena said with a laugh. "Mr. Edwards (Chairman of the Board) started calling us the Pink Ladies and we never could get it stopped."
"What I'm going to miss is not the hospital -- it's the people," Bob said. "You won't see this group of people anymore. I'll miss it. You betcha' I will."
Richard Anderson agreed.
"I'll try not to cry," Anderson said. "I feel like I'm losing my hospital home. Not just the place where I practiced, but where I would go if I were a patient. I was born there, my grandmother died there, my father died there, and I figured eventually I would die there. But I don't want to speed up the process just because they are closing the hospital." §
Shands AGH Tribute Event
Friday, October 9
1 p.m. to 2 p.m.
Albert Isaac is Editor-in-Chief at Tower Publications. He can be reached at editor@towerpublications.com.
