Clarendon Memorial Hospital has a bright future, according to the chief executive officer of the company that owns it.
“Not only do I see Clarendon Memorial as having a bright future, but I see Clarendon as a leading community healthcare provider in South Carolina,” said Clarendon Health System CEO Richard Stokes. “When I look at our future, I think we’re going to shift our focus to more out-patient rather than in-patient procedures.”
“Clarendon Memorial today won’t be the same Clarendon Memorial in 10 years, as far as how we provide services,” Stokes said. “Services are swiftly moving toward more out-patient based care. Of course, for those acutely ill, we will continue to offer inpatient care.”
Clarendon Memorial Hospital first opened its doors April 1951. Just 15 minutes after a ribbon cutting and celebration, the hospital had its first emergency room patient.
Former assistant administrator and human resources director Charles Hester, who began working at the hospital as a bookkeeper in 1956, said he can remember when the emergency room wasn’t manned 24/7.
“The protocol back then was that if an emergency came in, someone needing emergency care, they would ring a bell on the porch for someone to come out,” Hester said. “Now, you can be seen at any time. But back then there wasn’t as much of an emphasis on emergency medicine.”
The hospital started with 56 beds and four doctors, Hester said. Each doctor would come make rounds in the morning before heading to his respective office.
“If you had an emergency at the hospital during the workday while they were at their offices, you had to call whoever was on-call that day,” Hester said. “They would then leave their office and come back to the hospital to see that patient.”
As emergency medicine at the hospital gained traction, Clarendon Memorial expanded to a full-time emergency room in “the late 1960s or early 1970s,” as Hester recalls.
“We staffed the emergency room with doctors from the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston,” Hester said. “These were young doctors who had graduated and had their medical degrees but who had not yet done their internships and residencies.”
Other changes in the 1960s and 1970s included technology, of course.
“When I started working at the hospital, we had X-ray and lab services together,” Hester said. “There were two people working in there, and they would alternate. And we didn’t have the monitors like we take for granted today.”
The hospital also had to rely on visiting specialists.
“We had a radiologist who came from Tuomey about once a week, and he was on call if they needed him,” Hester said. “A kidney specialist came down about once a month. Any specialist other than an M.D. came on a rotating basis.”
“We did have Dr. Davis, who was the surgeon here, but he was the only one of what you would call a specialist at the time,” Hester said.
Hester said another significant change between his initial employment with the hospital and his retirement in 1990 included a switch in gender roles.
“I think if people could go back to the 1950s and see the operations of the hospital, the thing that would strike them most would be the RNs in their stiff, white uniforms, with their white caps and stiff shoes and stockings,” Hester said. “At that time, nurses were female, just like doctors were male.”
There was one exception to this gender norm.
“If a man went into nursing, he went into anesthesiology,” Hester said.
Nurses were considered part of the professional staff, handling much of the work that many licensed practical nurses perform today.
“LPNs weren’t recognized as being professionals at that point,” Hester said. “It wasn’t until many years later that the healthcare industry began to rely on LPNs as a major backbone.”
Nurses were also housed in a building located where Dr. Dominicci’s office now stands.
“Young ladies who were single and out of school, you furnished them with living quarters,” Hester said. “That building was the nurse’s residence. We had maybe 10 to 15 girls that were there in 1956. The director of nurses happened to be an older single lady.”
“She pretty much ruled it with an iron hand,” Hester said. “As the culture change, these girls out of school didn’t want to be restricted to a nursing home with rules and all.”
Like the old teachers’ residences, the homes had curfews and rules.
“The young man would pick them up for a date, and he had to meet the house mother; the nurses had to be in at a certain time,” Hester. “It didn’t take long for that to go by the wayside as the culture changed.”
Hester said the 1950s and 60s were a time when the general public wasn’t as educated about healthcare as they are today.
“The general public relied more on home remedies,” Hester said. “They stayed home and took care of themselves until there was a crisis, and then they ended up in the hospital. Then, it would take a day or sometimes a week to stabilize them.”
“A lot of people still won’t go to the doctor today, but this was before insurance like we know it today,” Hester said. “It was before Medicaid and Medicare. Economically, going to the doctor just wasn’t feasible for some people.”
Hester said the main thing he has seen in his five decades with the hospital – he continues to visit and serves as its unofficial historian – is an exponential change in technology.
“I remember shortly after I got here when the first EKG came into existence,” Hester said. “I remember the first one they did here. That was the pinnacle of medical technology then. We didn’t have the scans or the MRIs like we have today.”
After starting six decades ago with just four doctors, the hospital now offers a broad range of services to patients of all ages, with many options for senior citizens, their families and caregivers.
Services offered by Clarendon Health System and the hospital include cardiac rehabilitation; cardiology; cardiopulmonary care; Clarendon Emergency Medical Services (911); Cypress Medical Supply; Cypress Transport Service; a dietician; emergency medicine; the Generations Center for labor and delivery; guest and respite care; home health; hospitalist services; infusion therapy; intensive care; a laboratory; long-term care; radiology and imaging; rehabilitation; a sleep lab; surgery; a swing bed unit; and wellness.
“I see our future as being quite strong,” Stokes said. “Given the changes that we’re making, and the directions that we’re going, I think it’s going to be very, very bright.”
