Hospital celebrates 125th anniversary
‘We think it is the duty of Chester County to care for her own,’ was the feeling of the founders of county’s oldest hospital
The year 1892 brought some significant developments for the United States.
It was the year Ellis Island first opened to allow European immigrants into the United States. James Naismith had his rules for basketball published and the sport began to be played a couple months later that same year. Rudolf Diesel applied for a patent for his invention of the “diesel engine,” a compression ignition engine. Sir Frederick Stanley donated the Stanley Cup. Thomas Edison was awarded a patent for his telegraph. The Pledge of Allegiance was first recited in public schools. Grover Cleveland was elected president.
And in West Chester, Pennsylvania, in an event perhaps not as profound as opening communication coast-to-coast, a group of residents gathered to discuss the possibility of having a hospital in the borough.
According to a report of the Committee of the Chester County Medical Society, “We send many cases annually to the Philadelphia hospitals … (patients) are separated from their homes and friends. They often incur serious injury from … transportation, and the delay … may be injurious.
“West Chester is more accessible … we think it is the duty of Chester County to care for her own.”
On Sept. 13, founders were granted a charter for The West Chester Hospital, making it the first hospital in Chester County. Land on the north side of the community park at Marshall Square was purchased and bids were accepted for construction. Costs exceed the budget despite vigorous fundraising (a development modern taxpayers can appreciate).
The Board of Managers was unwilling to abandon or delay the project, however, and on Oct. 31, ground was broken to construct the back portion of the main building. The hospital opened in 1893 and changed its name to “The Chester County Hospital.”
The hospital has been celebrating its 125th anniversary this year with events and recollections of its history from its humble beginnings as a 10-bed dispensary to its current existence as a growing hospital in the Penn Medicine system.
One such memory came from the Daily Local News, which reported on Fred Stanley becoming the hospital’s first patient. He was admitted on March 1, 1893 for sciatic rheumatism.
“Fred, son of Nelson Stanley, who resides in the dwelling portion of the house of the West Chester Fire Company. He has been confined to his bed for a year past with sciatic rheumatism and has suffered terribly with the disease. During his illness the last was frequently disturbed and caused additional suffering by the ringing of the fire bells and the tramp of the members of the company upon the stairways. The removal will afford the little sufferer much more comfort.”
In its historic telling, the hospital also makes special note of the contributions of industrialist Pierre S. du Pont of Longwood Gardens.
The nationwide Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 reached Chester County in the fall of that year and the hospital admitted 240 patients. The outbreak forever changed the hospital because among its victims was a young man named Lewes A. Mason, an employee of du Pont’s.
Despite their best efforts, hospital physicians could not save Mason. This loss, though, inspired du Pont to make a grand gesture to thank Chester County Hospital and the care the physicians gave to Mason.
Du Pont endowed the hospital with a $1 million gift and his personal involvement in the design and construction of a new hospital.
The new location on East Marshall Street, where Chester County Hospital now sits, opened in 1925. Architecturally inspired by the du Ponts’ visit to the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, Italy, the new building featured smooth white stucco walls, open porches for fresh-air healing, terra cotta roof tiles and marble accents. In memory of Lewes A. Mason, a large, polished brass medallion was inlayed in the floor where patients, visitors, doctors and staff entered.
Such events were well before the tenure of retired hospital President Perry Pepper, of course, but he happily discussed some of his memories of leading Chester County. President from 1977 to 2010, his 33-year career is the longest as tenured hospital president in Pennsylvania, the hospital’s history notes.
“Like any term of office, much of the life of the hospital is about the routine of patient care, and the little victories and losses that we witness over the years,” Pepper said last week. “That being said, there certainly were a few occasions which rose above the everyday drama and remain etched in my mind. Certainly one of those occasions would have been the Three Mile Island nuclear plant meltdown (in 1979).
“While every hospital tries to prepare for large-scale disasters, the potential of a catastrophe of that scope was sobering indeed,” he said. “I clearly remember sitting around our conference room table with members of almost every state and federal agency and being told that an evacuation of the Harrisburg area was very likely ... As everyone knows today, it was a very close call for all of us and was the beginning of a much higher level of mass casualty planning at both the local and federal level.”
Pepper remembered West Chester as a much different town when he arrived in 1977 as it is today.
It was feeling the full effects of the growth in popularity of malls and department stores. Many of the smaller retail stores in West Chester, like the local Five and Dime, closed their doors and the town became less vibrant as people shopped elsewhere, he said.
“When Madeline Adler became the president of West Chester University the two of us got along very well. We were the largest employers in town and joked that we were the bookends on either end of our community. Between the university’s growth, the hospital’s growth and an improving economy, our little town started to rebound. Thanks to the city fathers at the time, much work was done to preserve and beautify the downtown area. There are few people today that can remember this quite dramatic transition and it is a great joy now to see West Chester as the bustling university town that it has become.”
“In terms of significant social issues I would just say that the hospital always was founded on the principle that all those in need of care were welcome and would be treated as equals,” he said. “Chester County has always had a significant proportion of Latinos. From the earliest days in my memory, the hospital tried to provide mainstream medical care to a population often underserved. We operated a bilingual maternal and child health clinic in which our physicians volunteered their time long before such services were reimbursed. We even sent our clinic nurses down to Mexico in order to have a better understanding of the common healthcare issues facing that population.”
While the issue of immigration is a hot button issue today, Pepper said the hospital never questioned the need to treat any patient, even ones that may have been undocumented.
The economics of healthcare today make it almost impossible for hospitals to successfully operate independently, Pepper observed.
“When I arrived at the Chester County Hospital in the ‘70s there were about 60 independent community hospitals in the greater Philadelphia area,” Pepper said. “In 1985, with the development of the first hospital system, Main Line Health, hospitals started to realize that in order for them to negotiate favorable contracts with the large insurers they would need to have common ownership. Soon the tertiary hospitals were putting together their own networks and the consolidation of the hospitals moved inexorably forward.
“I believe most healthcare economists would point to this economic contest between the large insurers and hospital networks as being the result of having health insurance thought of as a benefit of employment,” the retired hospital president said. “Today, I believe there are only one or two independent hospitals left in the greater Philadelphia area. I am pleased that our hospital became part of the University of Pennsylvania as it speaks to the quality of care and the expertise of our medical staff. Further, it certainly was not economically feasible for even a regional hospital to negotiate a competitive reimbursement contract by itself.”
Current president and CEO of the hospital, Michael J. Duncan, took over from Pepper in 2011. While much has changed from 1892 in patient care and the business of healthcare, some things haven’t changed at the hospital, he said.
“Everyone who walks through the door is some employee’s family, friend or neighbor,” Duncan said. “That colors everything we do. We make eye contact. We greet each person. We cry when somebody loses a relative in an untimely way. It’s just so deeply personal and meaningful.”