Eighty-five years ago Thursday, a five-story, 80-bed, $175,000 medical facility - the Dr. W.H. Groves Latter-day Saints Hospital - was dedicated.
Physicians, city leaders and officials of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gathered for the 2:30 p.m. ceremony. Parking, reportedly, was a problem.It was less of a problem (thanks to the construction of two parking terraces) when city and medical officials gathered Thursday afternoon at LDS Hospital to celebrate 85 years of community service.
"The health-care industry has changed considerably in 85 years. But one part that hasn't changed is service to the community. Our first priority is still our patients and service to them," said Richard Cagen, hospital administrator. "We provide service to them with higher technology and more expediently than we did 85 years ago, but they are still why we are here."
In 1905, 30 patients were admitted during the hospital's first week of operation. In 1990 the hospital is expected to serve 21,011.
The first hospital was described by the Deseret News as being "modern in every sense of the term; perfect in arrangement, and in equipment and accessory not surpassed in all the world."
Still, the hospital had no cafeteria, no kitchen, no nurses, no trained employees, faulty heating and a part-time administrator.
But it did have 30 bathrooms, the first elevator in the Salt Lake Valley, and a strict code of conduct. "Loud talking, loitering, gossiping, and visiting patients in parts of the hospital are forbidden," said an early hospital publication. "Smoking, chewing tobacco, spitting, and every other disagreeable habit will not be tolerated."
Smoking still isn't tolerated in today's state-of-the-art facility, which is now owned and operated by Intermountain Health Care.
What continues to be tolerated - in fact, encouraged - is change.
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85 years of change at LDS Hospital
Beds 80 475
Employees 48 2,987
Medical staff 45 556
Parking terraces 0 2
Births 17 4,150
Surgeries 707 14,959
Average length of stay 15.9 days 5.47 days
Admissions per day 2.7 57.5
Total patients served 987 21,011
Total expenditures $35,175 $161 million