Thorn Hospital: the rise, decline and fall

Trivia Question: One City Manager did double duty as Hospital Administrator. Who was he? (Answer at the end of article.)

The saga of Thorn Hospital is a long one of community support of an institution that was both wanted and needed. That level of community support kept the hospital an active part of the health care of the community long after it was an economically feasible proposition.

Thorn Hospital dated back to 1924, when Mrs. Ellen Thorn willed her large three story home on Grove Street to the community for use as a hospital. Along with the bequest, she included $15,000 for equipment, and a small annuity for maintenance.

The community was ready for a hospital. Citizens  added to Mrs. Thorn's donations to help fit and equip the hospital. "A hospital in a city the size of Hudson is a community affair," wrote Stanley Stone in the Post-Gazette. Florence Crane, R.N., the Superintendent of Nurses of Bixby Hospital, was hired as the superintendent. The first baby born at the hospital was James B. Russell, born December 23, 1924.

Three years later, a $24,000, ten-room addition was made to the building. The hospital stayed open for the next 35 years, except for a short period in 1946 when it was impossible to hire nurses. Mrs. Nina Jones served the longest as superintendent, from 1944 through 1961.

 In the early fifties, the hospital was busy. In September of 1954, 23 patients were admitted, and rooms had to be doubled, with beds even placed in the hallways. One week there was a record of fifteen births, and the last two babies had to be placed into dresser drawers since there was a lack of bassinettes. It was clear that the community, and the health care system, was outgrowing the old building.

About 1954, a building campaign fund was started by community leaders in Hudson, Morenci, Waldron and Pittsford. The proposed "Meridian Road Hospital Building", serving the joint communities; it would have been located on US-127 about five miles south of Hudson. But, both Hudson and Morenci wanted to keep their own hospitals, so the drive wasn't successful.  It wasn't until 1960 that a generous donation of $330,000 from Mr. and Mrs. Ray Herrick of Tecumseh, along with community pledges of $140,000 and a ten acre site by the family of Frank Ames made the new Thorn Hospital possible. It was opened in 1861, and was dedicated by the Herricks, although the Thorn name was retained.

Thorn  continued  as a busy place through the 1960s, but several things began to drag it down as the 1970s progressed. Health care costs were rising, at the same time that patient days were declining. Some services could not be maintained, for the relatively small amount that they were being used. The ease of transportation to larger hospitals, that had enough use of services to maintain them, put the bite on Thorn and thousands of other small, community hospitals around the country. In addition, insurance companies and Medicare would not reimburse the hospital for the full costs incurred, and were sometimes years late.

Thorn was hurting by the mid-1980s. The city ultimately owned Thorn at the time, and several times the City Council had to loan money to the hospital to be able to make payroll. In 1986, insurance forced the hospital to have a physician on duty in the emergency room full time -- something that would cost $300,000 per year. It couldn't be supported, and the Hospital board asked for permission to close the hospital. The City Council asked that for the good of the community, the hospital and emergency room be kept open as long as possible.

The next two years were a long and complicated agony of layoffs and cutbacks and plans that never quite worked, and of an ever-deepening debt whose size no one knew. Finally, on January 3, 1989, the Hospital Board and the City Council reluctantly voted to close the hospital, on January 27, when the hospital admitted its final community patient, Robert Tomer, in the emergency room.

The community was in turmoil for much of 1989. Though no one knew the size of the hospital debt, it seemed to be around a million dollars. About half the debt could be covered by a grant, but bonding was needed to cover the rest of the debt.

But, a temporary savior appeared:  the  bariatric surgical practice of Dr. James Sapala of Albion. The specialist practice came to Thorn in 1990, and for a few years was wildly successful, bailing the city out of its debts, though.

Thorn in this period made only limited health care contributions to the area's people, and did not accept nonsurgical patients. During this period, the city severed its relations with Thorn, which became an independent corporation, and when the Sapalas not unexpectedly pulled out, Thorn was left to stand on its own. Other arrangements, including a tie-in with Jackson's Foote Hospital failed to be profitable, and when the Thorn Board voted to abandon the arrangement with Foote and join with Lenawee Health Authority, a consortium of Bixby and Herrick Hospitals, it was clear that the action meant the end of Thorn as a hospital.

Trivia Answer: Paul Goode held down both jobs, until they grew to where they couldn't be done on a part time basis



THORN HOSPITAL SUPERINTENDENT NINA JONES in the nursery of Old Thorn Hospital. She was superintendent of the hospital for 25 years, from 1941 to 1966. The date of the photo is unsure.