Florence Plans Addition

BY CARLTON TRAUX

Hospital boards in two more central South Carolina counties took steps towards supplying adequate hospital facilities for the people of their counties recently.

Today and tomorrow open house is being held at the new $520,000 Fairfield County Memorial Hospital in Winnsboro.

Bond Issue

In Camden the Kershaw County Hospital board has advertised for bids on $1,250,000 in bonds for the construction of a new 80 to 104 bed hospital near Camden.

That’s were open for several days ago for the construction of a $369, 400 addition to the McLeod infirmary at Florence.

Construction of the Fairfield County Memorial Hospital has been completed by Shockley Construction Company of Columbia and the hospital will be ready to receive his first patients about the second week in January.

The hospital staff will spend the next 4 to 6 weeks training nurses aids, completing the installation of $38,000 worth of equipment and sterilization.

Ground was broken for the new hospital located on the Winnsboro By-pass, during the summer of 1953. It was designed by Lafaye, Fair, Lafaye Associates of Columbia.

35 EMPLOYES

The modernnistically designed hospital will open with a staff of 35 regular employees and six doctors.

The staff will include seven nurses, headed by Mrs. Drew Johnson of Winnsboro, five nurses aids and a dietitian, Mrs. John Gallup, and 21 maids, janitors, cooks cooks helpers.

This staff will be expanded as the patient load grows. A. J. Woodring is the hospital administrator and Dr. J. B. Floyd is chief of the medical staff.

The 30-bed capacity of the hospital can be expanded to 50 or 60 beds without increasing the size of the kitchen and laboratories.

The service area has been designed to handle about double the plan patient load to care for future expansion.

The Fairfield County Hospital, built with funds provided by the Hill-Burton Federal Hospital Aid Act, is one of the few small hospitals with a pipe oxygen system. It has a central oxygen room and pipes in the walls carry the gas to all parts of the hospital. There are oxygen outlets in all the ward rooms.

There is also a two-way address system connecting every ward room with the nurses desk. This system and the separate system are connecting the hospitals six offices are of such sensitivity that a patient’s voice can be picked up from any spot in the room where the microphones are located.

Auxiliary Power Unit

another unique feature, which no other hospital in South Carolina has, is an automatic auxiliary power unit. When the normal electrical power drops below a certain point, the auxiliary unit automatically begins operating to supply the hospital with full electrical requirements.

In equipping the hospital the board has planned for the future for buying equipment which will require as little yearly maintenance as possible. All the kitchen ware and many of the other items of general use are of stainless steel. The latest an X-ray equipment has been installed.

Mr. Woodring, the administrator of the new hospital, is a native of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, who served as assistant administrator of the Anderson Memorial Hospital before coming to Winnsboro.

Prior to that he worked for a large department store chain in Greensboro, North Carolina for three years. In Anderson, he used this experience to set up the credit system now employed by the Anderson Hospital.

Received Gifts

Private gifts from several Winnsboro citizens and business were used to furnish the pastel-painted ward rooms in modernistic furniture. Gifts came from the Bank of Fairfield, the Merchant and Planters Bank, the Business and Professional Women’s Club, Phillip’s Granite Company, Country Home Demonstration Clubs and Dr. John C. Buchanan, a member of the hospital board.

The members of the board are R. H. McDonald, chairman, James S. Edmunds, vice chairman, Claude Sims, Claude Ragsdale, Jr., and Dr. C. S. McCants.

Kershaw taking Bids

Camden, the Kershaw County Hospital board is receiving bids for $1,250,000 in bonds authorized by the county in this summer’s election.

The acceptance of a bid when the bids are open on January 5, will end almost two years of bitter controversy between those favoring the construction of a new hospital at a new site and citizens favoring modernization and additions to the present Camden hospital.

Preliminary plans drawn up for the board by Longwood, Green and Co. of Greenville, call for the construction of an 80-bed hospital. However, it if possible the board hopes to be able to build 104-bed hospital with funds from the bond issue.

The board headed by H. Granger Gaither, hopes to have construction underway by the summer of 1955 and the hospital in operation in early 1956.

3-Story Building

Plans call for a modern, three-story, fireproof, steel and masonry cross-shaped building. It will be located on former Kindall property off of U. S. Highway 1 about one mile east of Camden’s city limits.

Members of the board include, Mr. Gaither, chairman, the Rev. Stiles Lines, J. P. Sinclair, Dr. Carl West, Mrs. Ruben Pitts, J. R. Waters, Fred Brinson, Mrs. Mary Louise Mitchell, of Bethune, Talmadge Owens, of Blaney and J. R. Teal of Cassatt.

Bid Rejected

A low bid of $369,400 was submitted by a Charleston firm for the construction of a four-story addition to the McLeod Infirmary in Florence on December 1, but this bid was more than the funds made available by the Reconstitution Finance Corporation for its construction, and the board is now working on plans either to secure additional funds or to change some of the features of the proposed addition.

When completed that addition will replace the present Negro wards of the infirmary and add about 35 beds to the hospitals capacity.

Captions:

The entrance of the new Fairfield County Memorial Hospital at Winnsboro which is open for public inspection today and tomorrow is shown above. The $558,000 hospital will be ready to receive patients about the second week in January.

A. J. Woodring, administrator of the new Fairfield County Memorial Hospital.

Dr. J. B. Floyd, chief of the six-man medical staff of Fairfield County’s new $558,000 hospital at Winnsboro.