Songs from the 1940s greeted diners in the hospital cafeteria Monday, as the Virginia Hospital Center — Arlington celebrated its 60th anniversary Diamond Jubilee.
This week is the time to celebrate the anniversary for hospital employees, and for Arlington residents, with a Health Care Fair on Saturday. But the real observance of hospital history only comes after years of work, said some long-time employees.
Celebrating 60 years is not like marking time at work, or at a local institution, said employees and volunteers who’ve been at the hospital for decades.
“This is more like a big family here,” said Mac Showers, a 10-year volunteer in the hospital’s cancer center.
That has meant a sense of continuity, said Kathy Dorner, coordinator of the cancer center. As people get comfortable with the community in the hospital, they find a home. “Every time I think it’s time to move on, I look around and say, ‘This is where I want to be.’ I have friends making millions of dollars a year, and I have friends who clean the floor.”
<b>FOUNDED IN 1944</b> as Arlington Hospital, the hospital has expanded three times over the last six decades, changed its name three years ago. The hospital is in the process of expanding again.
Those have meant obvious, and not-so-obvious, changes in the warp and woof of hospital life. “Obviously, the hospital has grown: services have increased, staff has increased,” said chaplain Hugh Harris, a 25-year employee of the hospital.
There have been regular changes in technology, too, now coming at an exponential rate. “We’re responsible for a lot more information,” said Jane Auker, an emergency nurse at the hospital for 27 years. “I’m coming up on my 30th college reunion. I thought I knew a lot when I got out [of college], and now I think it’s just amazing how much you learn on a weekly basis.”
But there have also been changes in how the hospital runs. In 1995, Arlington Hospital became a for-profit facility after 50 years as a non-profit.
In 1998, the hospital became a non-profit again, and it was a welcome return, said Showers. The years as a for-profit facility, “I think that was a low point,” he said. “When it became independent again, and not-for-profit, business improved, and care has improved.”
<b>ATTITUDES HAVE ALSO</b> improved. Nurses are more than just helpers in the background, said Auker. “It looks like nurses in management have more autonomy, and nurses are more respected,” she said.
When the hospital opened, there were only 50 nurses on staff — there are 550 today — and they were expected to live at the hospital.
Harris, the first full-time hospital chaplain, was not always met with open arms. “Since I was the first, most people were unfamiliar with the role. There was a certain amount of suspicion, that I was here to convert people.”
But since 1978, Harris said he has been more widely embraced by the hospital community.
“Hospital administrators came to an awareness that because of the need for spiritual care as part of overall care, we need a specially trained person on staff,” he said.