Hospital Histories & Defunct Facilities

[Davey Do]

In the 40+ years I've been in nursing as an EMT, LPN, or RN, I've worked with thirteen different facilities.

I worked at one facility, Anomaly Volunteer Emergency Corps, as a volunteer EMT from 1979 to 1981, and it still functions. Even though I worked as an EMT at the Anomaly Children's Home for sporting events and the like, my primary position was as a Houseparent. The children's home hired an RN about 6 months into my employment, so he took over what were some of my duties, and the institution continues to operate.

But of the other eleven , four no longer exist, four have changed names and/or hands, and only three continue as they did when I worked there.

 

I graduated in December 1983 as an LPN and was hired as a CNA for a couple of weeks until an LPN position opened at Mom 'N' Pop's in January 1984.

There are now new houses which sit on the site of the old nursing home.

 

I worked at Weed Rover Township Hospital from March 1984 until December 1990.

 

Weed Rover closed down in 1999 and now houses the health department, morgue, state police substation, and some other agencies.

 

So tell me about some hospital histories and/or defunct facilities where you've work, because you can be sure I'm going to be back to tell you about mine!

 

 

 

 

[Daisy4RN]

I worked at a large University teaching hospital and thought a smaller community hospital would be better. I applied got the job, worked there only 3 weeks because it was absolutely horrible. It was a cardiac unit, no charge nurse (who ever got there first made the pt assignment) and no help available except other nurses who were too busy to help, no extra training for cardiac care (they had told me there would be but it was just regular hospital orientation stuff), no pt transport so you were it if the pt needed a procedure/test so had to get a cardiac monitor and go with them meanwhile leaving your other pts virtually unattended, if you had to call the MD they were always nasty on the phone (every single time), no secretary so had to do all orders etc. I really felt my license was on the line there, too many ways for it it go bad real fast. I called my previous Manager and went back to my old position with a new found appreciation for how "bad" it was there (she said she was hoping I would come back and never turned in my resignation lettet to HR). About a year later that small hospital was bought out by a larger one so not sure if it got better or worse over there.

[Corey Narry, MSN, RN, NP]

Interesting.  I always worked for larger hospitals maybe because in my mind, they are low risk for closures.  My first job after my BSN (in the Philippines) was at a large urban university hospital built during the American occupation which is of course, still standing and going strong now. Incidentally, it's the same hospital I was born in.

First hospital job in the US is in a hospital that is part of a Religious Sisters of Mercy network of hospitals...the HR office is in an old art deco building that housed the former Diploma Nursing program and Nurses' Dorms  which is now demolished and a new patient tower is standing in its place.  The 10th floor had patient suites with gorgeous views and a large, beautiful chapel with stained glass - also now gutted and turned into regular rooms.  Hated that place though, LOL...very old school "physicians are king" environment. 

I've worked at major teaching hospitals since which I seem to prefer even when I started my first NP job in 2004..current job as an NP at a university hospital which I really love.

[Davey Do]

1 hour ago, Daisy4RN said:

 About a year later that small hospital was bought out by a larger one so not sure if it got better or worse over there.

What an experience! It is good that you could go back to your previous position!

"Never turned in (your) resignation letter to HR"! It sounds as though your manager had some wishful thinking with her finger on the pulse of The Fates!

The company that owns Wrongway bought out the old St. E's in Eiffel, Ill around 2001. St. E's was losing money primarily because of its goodwill.

Eleanor has been employed at St. E's/Wrongway since 1984 and tells tales of the drastic changes there.

[Davey Do]

Wow, juan de la cruz, what an interestingly intense professional history you have!

31 minutes ago, juan de la cruz said:

 My first job after my BSN (in the Philippines) was at a large urban university hospital built during the American occupation... Incidentally, it's the same hospital I was born in.

How cool!

You know, the hospital that I was born in Anomaly, St. Jay's, was bought out by St. Anomaly's around 1990, which was bought out by another order in 2014.

 St. Jay's is one of the few area hospitals where I never worked. I believe ours was the last nursing class to use St. Jays for clinicals, in the Spring of 1989. It was a cool time because I could walk to St. Jay's from where I lived in Anomaly.

 

[Davey Do]

27 minutes ago, Davey Do said:

St. Jay's, was bought out by St. Anomaly's around 1990, which was bought out by another order in 2014.

I didn't include St. Anomaly's Health Center in the count as one that changed hands since there was no name change. However, the facility has since improved exceptionably. 

My medical nurse wife Belinda had some tests and procedures done there recently and I was overall very impressed with the staff, services, and communication.

I worked at St. Anomaly's after leaving Weed Rover, for about three months. Basically, I didn't like them and they didn't like me.

I had about a year's OR experience as a Scrub Nurse at Weed Rover, from 1986-87. I got a position in OR at St. Anomaly's in January 1991 and, man things had changed in three years!

 

At St. Anomaly's, I scrubbed in on a surgeon's first lap chole and the whole thing took about 45 minutes!

I assisted on colonoscopies at Weed Rover and I don't remember any video equipment being used. The Doc viewed the colon through a scope.

St. Anomaly's had just purchased a scope with the ability to take pics, and one of the nurses too a pic of me with it:

 

 

I believe this is the only pic ever taken of me in OR scrubs.

Definitely the only pic ever taken of me with a colonoscope camera!

 

[RNperdiem, RN]

I remember the old state psych hospital. Large campus, turn of the century and older buildings. Long term residents would have jobs on campus. There were even old houses still there because way back when, the employees often lived in housing on the hospital grounds. A new, modern facility was built and the old buildings have become government buildings. I suspect the old buildings are too full of asbestos to be easily demolished, and that keeps them standing.

[Davey Do]

20 minutes ago, RNperdiem said:

I remember the old state psych hospital.

You have just described Anomaly State Hospital to a T, RNperdiem!

Beautiful old administrative buildings, arched hallways, high ceilings, a lot of wood, brick, glass and granite built a little over 100 years ago.

The campus had its own hospital where everything up to surgeries were performed. That hospital, which housed the DD population when I worked there in the early '90's, was the only place I had actually seen a so-called Rubber Room.

Geez, you could get me going with recalling memories, RNperdiem!

But just because it happened to me doesn't make it interesting.

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

I've worked in three facilities and they are all still around.

First I worked at the VA in Fayetteville, NC as a CNA for the last year I was in Nursing school.  The idea was for me to have a ready job as an RN when I graduated.  I decided not to take it as then (prior to the middle eastern and Afghan Wars) it was more like a nursing home.

As a new grad I worked at Duke University in Durham, NC and it was a great experience.  I worked general medicine, including AIDS, and was part of an internship that had great support and we met weekly to talk about our experience and learn.  It was a huge sprawling campus with 1,000 inpatient beds and a whole lot of clinics.  They are a great research center and I met the doctor that did the AZT trials back when AIDS was a death sentence.  They also did some interesting chemotherapy trials.  I thought this might be the place for me, but I stayed only a year because I fell in love and my boyfriend got a good job in Florida.

That was 28 years ago and I'm still at this job. I've worked in several areas but stayed at the hospital.   We've been bought out three times the last six years.  The current owner is a not-for-profit and I like them a lot.  The last for-profit owners ran us into the ground and I nearly quit.

 

 

 

[Davey Do]

Yours is an interesting history, Tweety.

2 hours ago, Tweety said:

 I met the doctor that did the AZT trials back when AIDS was a death sentence.

To be on the cutting edge of medical technology!

Back in 1992-93, I worked med surg/ER in an incredibly small 19 bed rural community hospital, Buoy Memorial, with a typical census of six inpatients. During the year I worked there, I believed we had a full census one time.

One thing that was interesting about Buoy Memorial was that they were on the cutting edge of technology. It was the first place where I learned of TPAs like streptokinase and urokinase.

I Googled "TPA history" and this is an excerpt from the National Library of Medicine:

"Over the past two decades tissue-type plasminogen activator (t-PA), the main physiological plasminogen activator, has been developed as a fibrin-specific thrombolytic agent for the treatment of various thromboembolic diseases."

"Over the past two decades" and Buoy Memorial was using TPAs nearly thirty years ago!

[LibraNurse27, BSN, RN]

I didn't work there, but by my grandparents' house there was the vestiges of an enormous psychiatric institution that closed in the 1980s. Apparently severely mentally ill patients were institutionalized there, but so were relatively high functioning developmentally delayed people who could have likely functioned in society.

Horrible things happened there, including patient abuse and involuntary sterilization. Some of the buildings have been renovated into offices, and ironically one into a wonderful program for people with autism. However most of the buildings are still there crumbling, and the areas where none of the buildings have been renovated feel haunted. Not kidding. It's as if you can feel the bad atmosphere that was there so many years ago =( many local teens go there to drink/smoke/party etc

[Daisy4RN]

Y'all reminded me of a psych hospital I did a clinical rotation at. It was very old and much like one flew over the cuckoos nest, very scary, it also had a rubber room. It was torn down a few years later. We students sat in on a conference with one of the patients, about 6 students, and about 10 staff. I honestly cant remember what was going on, what the staff was trying to get from the pt, because I kept thinking how on earth do they expect this pt to open up with all these people around (and he didn't)!. Granted, I know nothing about psych even still but I really just felt sorry for the pt at the time. There was probably a method to the madness but even when I asked the instructor I didn't get an answer as to why the (IMO) interrogation of the pt in front of a room full, seemed a little counterproductive.