mcdude
05-20-2010, 11:29 AM
Editorial from the Granite State News
This Saturday morning at 10 a.m., the trustees of Huggins Hospital will hold a ribbon cutting ceremony and then open the doors of a new, stateof-the-art medical facility for public tours and celebration. We will be there, and we hope you will take the time to see what years of planning and dedication by many people have accomplished. Building the new hospital was not a simple or an easy process. While the community has always treasured and supported Huggins – as the pullout insert in this edition amply demonstrates – making the major changes required to go from a small community hospital to a Critical Access Hospital were difficult for many to accept. The hospital had expanded before and even built a new facility in the past, but this time it was different. It was not simply a matter of adding wings and keeping everything else more or less intact. Instead it involved rethinking the facility and how care was best provided, and meeting new technological, financial and planning requirements. When we think back now on the objections that were raised during the zoning and site plan approval process,we see that the emotional element in the objections was rooted in a desire to preserve a simpler and more informal idea of the hospital, rooted in personal relationships and family memories. Sadly, the forces driving the need for change had already made that longtime model of a hospital unworkable. The growing complexity of medical treatment, the rapidlychanging technology required to deliver it and the profound shift in how the cost of medical care is financed pushed the Huggins trustees to a decision point: either adapt or fail. Other, larger
New Hampshire hospitals had failed and either been merged with another hospital or been taken over. To survive and stay independent, Huggins
had to change and build a completely modern facility. We are fortunate that the trustees, hospital administration and staff accepted the need for
change and stayed the course. While not everything has gone smoothly over the three years it has taken to plan and build the new facility, the
hospital has managed to address problems as they have come up and kept the hospital functioning and accessible during the construction process.
The opening of the new building is not the end of either the project or the transformation of Huggins. The hospital campus needs to be reconfigured
to provide parking and proper access, and that involves demolishing parts of the old facility, including the original main building. What to do with the 42,000 square feet of the present facility that was marked “mothballed” during the site plan review also needs to be addressed. Nonetheless, beginning this Saturday, the hospital and community will take a giant step forward. We congratulate the trustees, staff and administration of Huggins Hospital on their achievement and offer grateful thanks for the hard work and dedication that made this magnificent
new facility possible.
~ Granite State News
http://www.winnipesaukee.com/photopost/data/531/medium/Wolfeboro-1916-Huggins_Hospital.jpg
Huggins Sanitorium 1916
Huggins Sanatorium, as it was initially called, was a remodeled house that had belonged to the Rev. Theodore Jerome. It stood between what today is the 18th hole of the Kingswood Golf Club and the Kingswood High School. A dedication and opening reception were held the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, 1907, organized by the Ladies Hospital Aid which was created four months before the hospital opened its doors. The Ladies Hospital Aid has served as the foundation of more than a 100 years of enthusiastic community support of the hospital. The 12-bed sanatorium
(expandable to 16 beds in an emergency) sat on 11 acres of land. An early hospital inventory noted farm tools, hay, a cow, chickens, pigs and
a vegetable garden, as well as drugs, surgical supplies, and operating and sterilizing rooms. Fees in those days included 75 cents for a doctor’s office
consultation, $5 for minor surgery anesthetic, and $10 for a normal obstetric case. Wolfeboro doctors spent much of their time making house calls. In 1908 they charged $1 for a visit, plus 25 cents a mile if they
had to travel outside of “the central section” of town. The hospital was primarily a place to go for surgery. The first C-section in Carroll County was done by the young Dr. Fred Clow at Huggins in 1917. The local paper
also reported Dr. Curtis Cotton operating on a baby for a rare “abscess of the brain.”
* * *
This Saturday morning at 10 a.m., the trustees of Huggins Hospital will hold a ribbon cutting ceremony and then open the doors of a new, stateof-the-art medical facility for public tours and celebration. We will be there, and we hope you will take the time to see what years of planning and dedication by many people have accomplished. Building the new hospital was not a simple or an easy process. While the community has always treasured and supported Huggins – as the pullout insert in this edition amply demonstrates – making the major changes required to go from a small community hospital to a Critical Access Hospital were difficult for many to accept. The hospital had expanded before and even built a new facility in the past, but this time it was different. It was not simply a matter of adding wings and keeping everything else more or less intact. Instead it involved rethinking the facility and how care was best provided, and meeting new technological, financial and planning requirements. When we think back now on the objections that were raised during the zoning and site plan approval process,we see that the emotional element in the objections was rooted in a desire to preserve a simpler and more informal idea of the hospital, rooted in personal relationships and family memories. Sadly, the forces driving the need for change had already made that longtime model of a hospital unworkable. The growing complexity of medical treatment, the rapidlychanging technology required to deliver it and the profound shift in how the cost of medical care is financed pushed the Huggins trustees to a decision point: either adapt or fail. Other, larger
New Hampshire hospitals had failed and either been merged with another hospital or been taken over. To survive and stay independent, Huggins
had to change and build a completely modern facility. We are fortunate that the trustees, hospital administration and staff accepted the need for
change and stayed the course. While not everything has gone smoothly over the three years it has taken to plan and build the new facility, the
hospital has managed to address problems as they have come up and kept the hospital functioning and accessible during the construction process.
The opening of the new building is not the end of either the project or the transformation of Huggins. The hospital campus needs to be reconfigured
to provide parking and proper access, and that involves demolishing parts of the old facility, including the original main building. What to do with the 42,000 square feet of the present facility that was marked “mothballed” during the site plan review also needs to be addressed. Nonetheless, beginning this Saturday, the hospital and community will take a giant step forward. We congratulate the trustees, staff and administration of Huggins Hospital on their achievement and offer grateful thanks for the hard work and dedication that made this magnificent
new facility possible.
~ Granite State News
http://www.winnipesaukee.com/photopost/data/531/medium/Wolfeboro-1916-Huggins_Hospital.jpg
Huggins Sanitorium 1916
Huggins Sanatorium, as it was initially called, was a remodeled house that had belonged to the Rev. Theodore Jerome. It stood between what today is the 18th hole of the Kingswood Golf Club and the Kingswood High School. A dedication and opening reception were held the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, 1907, organized by the Ladies Hospital Aid which was created four months before the hospital opened its doors. The Ladies Hospital Aid has served as the foundation of more than a 100 years of enthusiastic community support of the hospital. The 12-bed sanatorium
(expandable to 16 beds in an emergency) sat on 11 acres of land. An early hospital inventory noted farm tools, hay, a cow, chickens, pigs and
a vegetable garden, as well as drugs, surgical supplies, and operating and sterilizing rooms. Fees in those days included 75 cents for a doctor’s office
consultation, $5 for minor surgery anesthetic, and $10 for a normal obstetric case. Wolfeboro doctors spent much of their time making house calls. In 1908 they charged $1 for a visit, plus 25 cents a mile if they
had to travel outside of “the central section” of town. The hospital was primarily a place to go for surgery. The first C-section in Carroll County was done by the young Dr. Fred Clow at Huggins in 1917. The local paper
also reported Dr. Curtis Cotton operating on a baby for a rare “abscess of the brain.”
* * *