Shelby’s hospital reaches milestone
SHELBY — Founded in the aftermath of the deadly 1918 flu pandemic when the city’s need for a hospital became evident, Ohiohealth Shelby Hospital is marking the 100th anniversary of its opening with an appreciation of its past and an eye toward its future in the community.
“Any time you have a business, a health care organization that’s in place in a community for 100 years, you should have amazing goodwill in terms of the number of people from that community that you’ve serviced,” said Vinson Yates, president Ohiohealth Shelby and Ohiohealth Mansfield Hospital.
“Being in that industry for 100 years and servicing the community and the broad communities in and around Shelby, northern Richland County, Richland County and other counties surrounding is pretty amazing,” he said.
Being a critical access facility “allows us the ability in the community like Shelby and northern Richland County to be very sustainable,” Yates said.
Shelby Hospital opened on April 20, 1921.
“We would like nothing more than to be there for another 100 years,” Yates said. “That’s got to come with good conversations in the community, great providers, great caregivers. And then when people come into Shelby Hospital, they know they are going to be treated. They know they’re going to be treated like their neighbor next door. And that is one of the beauties of Shelby Hospital as a critical access facility in these communities.”
Yates spoke about the significance of 100 years.
“It’s an opportunity to restate what it is that Shelby Hospital does in this area and sort of put a stamp on it,” he said.
Though he said that now is a tough time — due to the coronavirus pandemic —Yates is hopeful that Shelby Hospital probably will celebrate the milestone for the full year.
“The fact that we’re still not getting together in large crowds as of April, mid-april of 2021, I believe we’ll have that opportunity yet in the coming year,” he said. “So we’ll celebrate in many different ways. But, certainly, I think we need to put a stamp on the moment in time when it is 100 years.”
Yates was asked to speak about the importance of Shelby Hospital during the coronavirus pandemic era.
“As you know in March of 2020, most health care organizations tried to slow down, eliminate elective procedures for a long period of time,” he recalled of the early days of coronavirus crisis. “That certainly hurt Shelby, but Shelby (Hospital) stayed open first off the entire period of time, servicing the needs of many.”
Another wave of the COVID-19 pandemic arrived later in the year.
“Then we when