Chesapeake General Hospital - A History of Healing

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C H E S A P E A K E G E N E R A L H O S P I TA L

A His!or! o" Hea"in#

By Kerry DeRochi Kisa

One Hundred Percent Determination

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ne morning, in the fall of 1967, Jim Leftwich pulled into the driveway of a small ranch house in South Norfolk. He was there to meet Dr. W. Stanley Jennings, his friend and colleague on the Chesapeake Hospital Authority. Jennings had told him to be there at 7 a.m. They’d have coffee before hitting the road. Leftwich looked at his watch and glanced down the tree-lined street. A lawyer with a meticulous eye for detail, Leftwich was on time. He was always on time. As usual, there was no sign of Jennings’ blue Lincoln Mercury.

Leftwich sighed and sat in his car, waiting, thinking about the trip ahead. A lot was at stake Residents who lived this brisk morning; a lot was riding on this first in this 353-squarestep. The pair was charged with traveling to Richmond to see about bringing a hospital to the mile city were tired newly formed city of Chesapeake. They were to of traveling down meet later that morning with state health officials to find out what needed to be done. Leftwich two-lane roads, hoped they wouldn’t be late. across railroad tracks Jennings drew up in his car and leaned out the window. He’d been up for hours, seeing patients and draw bridges at Norfolk’s Leigh Memorial Hospital. He’d just to see a doctor. already made a handful of house calls on his way back home. Clothes rumpled and his face wrinkled from lack of sleep, Jennings climbed in beside Leftwich. “You drive,” he said, and closed his eyes.

On the way to Richmond, with Jennings sleeping beside him, Leftwich thought about the proposal outlined in a stack of papers inside his briefcase.

The plans were simple, really. The city wanted federal money to help pay for a 100-bed hospital to serve its 73,000 residents. City leaders had even picked a location – 45 acres on a corner of the intersection between Interstate 64 and what later would be called Battlefield Boulevard. The site, sitting squarely in the middle of Chesapeake, would be the flagship symbol of the city formed not four years before in an acrimonious merger of the urban, industrialized South Norfolk and the sprawling corn fields of Norfolk County. It was hoped that Chesapeake General would help smooth the frictions held over from the new marriage, unifying farmers and shipyard workers in a single campaign.

Support for the hospital had been well-publicized at town meetings and in local newspaper headlines. Residents who lived in this 353-square-mile city 1

were tired of traveling down two-lane roads, across railroad tracks and draw bridges just to see a doctor. They no longer wanted to play second fiddle to Norfolk residents who always seemed to get the best appointments with the staffs at Norfolk General, Leigh Memorial or Portsmouth Naval hospitals.

They were a new city and a new city needed a hospital.

In Richmond, later that morning, Leftwich and Jennings walked into the office of the Bureau of Medicine and Nursing Facilities. They unpacked their papers on the table and began to outline their proposal. They didn’t get very far. As far as state health officials were concerned, Chesapeake was not recognized as a city. They could apply for the federal Hill-Burton grants, but it was doubtful they would ever win one. In fact, the state doubted they even needed a hospital, not in the shadows of Norfolk General. In the eyes of health officials, Chesapeake remained a part of Norfolk and Portsmouth. And, it always Shocked, Leftwich and would be.

Jennings made the long Shocked, Leftwich and Jennings made the long drive back home. There really was drive back home. There not much to say. really was not much to say.

What they didn’t know as they stared bleakly at the pine trees along winding Route 60 was that this brief meeting would be only the first of countless setbacks they would face in pursuit of Chesapeake General. They didn’t know of the obstacles still before them, the stumbling blocks brought on by politics, by the turf wars with area hospitals or by the infighting of their own city leaders.

Yes, Chesapeake would get its hospital. But it would take another 10 years.

“There was 100 percent determination,” said Leftwich in a recent interview. “There was never 100 percent confidence.”

Today, at the 30th anniversary of its opening in 1976, Chesapeake General Hospital sits as the cornerstone of an 80 acre medical campus on bustling, sixlane north Battlefield Boulevard, less than two miles from Interstate 64. The six-floor brick building houses 310 beds and hosts a staff of 2,434. More than 17,000 surgeries are performed at the hospital each year; the number of laboratory procedures tops 650,000. The 28-bed Emergency Department is the busiest civilian ER in the region, treating more than 63,000 patients. In addition, Chesapeake General’s parent organization operates a lifestyle center, two assisted-living facilities, an ambulatory surgery center and a diagnostic center and is partners in a hospital along the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Chesapeake General, built as a symbol for a newly formed city, remains the only independent facility in the region.

The hospital recently marked the retirement of its first CEO, Dr. Donald S. Buckley, who served at the helm of the hospital for 34 years. His tenure began in the back office of an unheated construction trailer on a muddy site and ended with a lavish dinner reception at the Chesapeake Conference Center, where he was lauded for his determination to succeed. At the same dinner, the city welcomed its new chief, Christopher Mosley who took over the helm in January 2005.

Looking back at the last 30 years, those at the core of Chesapeake General’s founding are nonplussed at its growth and expansion. Jennings, who retired in his late 70s because of his failing legs, sees it as testament to the residents who fought so hard to build it. Sitting in the living room of his home off Virginia Avenue in South Norfolk, Jennings refuses to take credit for the hospital’s success. Neither does Jim Leftwich, who retired as a judge in the juvenile courts.

Nor, for that matter, does Ray Morgan, an accountant who brought momentum to the hospital campaign with his fiery speeches and his penchant for risks.

The success of the hospital is linked to something else, they say, something far greater than a ragged group of residents.

You see, Chesapeake General was never about bricks and mortar. Built in a swampy wood along Battlefield Boulevard, the hospital was meant to heal illness, to comfort those who were sick. Instead, it healed a whole city.

This is its story.

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n the early 1960s, in an attempt to thwart the land-hungry city of Norfolk from grabbing more territory, a handful of power brokers from South Norfolk and Norfolk County began secretly meeting to talk about the idea of a merger. Talk of joining forces had been in the air around Tidewater for years.

Already, South Norfolk had annexed nearby Portlock. Now, the leaders feared a land-grab by Norfolk would box them in to the south and west. Between 1950 and 1960, the county had lost 50,000 residents and 30 square miles of land area due to annexation.

For months, elected officials from both sides attended night meetings at the offices of the Norfolk County School Board in Great Bridge. Under the cloak of secrecy, they hammered The secrecy was necessary. Though out issues such as the make-up of the newly created city council. the merger was supported by the Who would serve as city manaelected officials, the issue was sure ger? And, for how long? Who would be treasurer? to cause a firestorm of protest The secrecy was necessary. from the two factions.

Though the merger was supported by the elected officials, the issue was sure to cause a firestorm of protest from the two factions. There was not a lot of love lost between the two sides. Norfolk County, with its mile after mile of rural land, was home to wealthy and politically well-connected farmers.

South Norfolk, on the other hand, remained largely blue collar. It was a place where small, Victorian style houses crowded against each other along a grid of streets. Shipyard workers took street cars to work. Others worked at one of two cotton mills, walking along the Beltline railroad tracks for their shifts. Lone Star operated a cement plant in the heart of the town.

In February 1962, the proposed merger was announced and a referendum was scheduled. It had to pass in both Norfolk County and South Norfolk.

Those in the county largely supported the idea, but those in South Norfolk opposed it. Residents of Portlock, now residents of South Norfolk, helped tip the vote in favor of the merger. Still angry at the recent annexation and closure of Portlock High School, they may have simply wanted to get even. The referendum passed four months later, and voters chose the name Chesapeake.

On January 1, 1963, Chesapeake became a city.

Many of the South Norfolk residents were wary of this new city, watching

for signs of favoritism, of plans being made to benefit the farmers to the south.

Already, a dispute had erupted in the Department of Parks and Recreation, hardly a typical spot for political squabbling. At issue was whether the parks should be controlled by the city manager or a separate, independent authority.

The conflict was philosophical and bitter; it lasted for years.

“We were so divided at that time,” said Sidney M. Oman, a funeral home director who was asked by the city council to head up the city’s first anniversary celebration in 1964. “I couldn’t get people to come from one side of the city to the other. We had 51 events in the seven boroughs, culminating with a parade in Great Bridge.”

It was in this acrimony that Jennings saw opportunity.

A general practice physician in South Norfolk, he had always believed his city deserved its own hospital. That year, he started circulating petitions in support of such a project. Jennings was frustrated by what he considered his lack of standing at the Norfolk hospitals. His patients were often wait-listed for procedures because they did not live in Norfolk.

“When you’re brought up in a community where you’ve always gotten less, you eventually realize there is no reason why you can’t have the best,” Jennings said. “It was something we deserved. There was no reason why we shouldn’t have it.”

A few months after Jennings began circulating his petitions, hundreds of residents attended a community meeting in the auditorium at Indian River High School off Indian River Road. It was the first such gathering in the city following the referendum, a chance for both sides to meet and talk about the future of Chesapeake. The guest speaker was a prominent politician from the city of Norfolk.

“I recall the speaker, in lauding Chesapeake’s great potential, suggesting our first priority should be to grow and build our industrial base and to refrain from building a hospital since we already have access to good medical facilities,” said Judge Preston Grissom, who had attended the meeting. “Little was he aware that Dr. Jennings’ idea had just started to spill over the old borders of South Norfolk and was getting the attention of a few older, country folk.”

It didn’t take long before the idea of a hospital caught on in this new city, emerging as a rallying cry of sorts. Looking back, it is difficult to assess why the idea of a single building held so much allure. Many of those who took part in the foundation of the city believe the hospital symbolized a new beginning, a chance for common, rural folks to make a break from Norfolk, to stand on their own. Some suggest it was simply the logical next step in the formation of Chesapeake: schools, police and a hospital.

All believe that it had not been for Stanley Jennings, the hospital would

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A City Divided

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not have been built.

Jennings, the son of a livestock farmer, was one of two physicians practicing in South Norfolk at the time of the merger. His office was a landmark to the residents of his borough. By all accounts, he was a tireless doctor, working at times in 24-hour stretches, doing rounds in Norfolk and making between 15 and 20 house calls a day.

“People were so dedicated to him, they’d go down and sit on the corner of Chesapeake Boulevard and wait for him,” said retired “People were so dedicated to him, City Treasurer Duval Flora. they’d go down and sit on the corner “Sometimes they would wait as long as two hours.” of Chesapeake Boulevard and wait Jennings’ efforts paid off for him,” said retired City Treasurer on January 29, 1965 when the city council appointed a hosDuval Flora. “Sometimes they would pital steering committee at the wait as long as two hours.” urging of Clarence Forehand, a soft-spoken member of the council known for his polished dress and his courtly manners. Dr. William Y. Garrett, director of the Chesapeake Health Department, was appointed to the committee along with Jennings.

The first order of business for the new committee was to contact the state for advice on how to proceed. The response was not welcoming. In a February 3 letter from the State Bureau of Medicine and Nursing Facilities, director Robert Ham suggested the cost of the hospital to be about $2.85 million, with an annual operating cost of $870,000. With such a price tag, Ham advised, the city would do well to evaluate whether there truly was a need for such a facility. “Although the city of Chesapeake does not have a hospital within its boundaries, this would not necessarily mean there is a need for one inasmuch as Chesapeake patients are now being served by Norfolk General, DePaul, King’s Daughters, Norfolk Community, Leigh Memorial, Portsmouth General, Maryview and Virginia Beach hospitals, all within a reasonable driving distance,” wrote Ham. “Practically all of the above hospitals are either presently enlarging and adding beds or have plans for addition on the drawing board.”

It would not be the last time Ham would warn Chesapeake officials of the costs and of the competition. It would not be the last time they ignored him.

In November of that same year, six months after Ham’s letter, the hospital steering committee sent a letter to the city council containing information the board had requested regarding the regulations surrounding hospitals. In the let-

ter, the committee reported that the state of Virginia was divided into 45 hospital areas, all falling under the supervision of the State Bureau of Medicine and Nursing Facilities. These districts generally followed “shopping areas” and crossed city boundaries. As it stood at the time, Chesapeake was split between Norfolk and Portsmouth, with 40 percent of the city lumped into the Norfolk region and the remaining 60 percent with Portsmouth. The letter pointed out that there was a shortage of hospital beds in the region. In 1963, some 9,000 Chesapeake residents were admitted to other local hospitals. The time it required them to reach a hospital was at least 20 minutes. If the hospital was built as suggested, no Chesapeake resident would be far from the health care he needed:

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The recommendation of the committee is for a hospital with approximately 100 beds with parking for approximately 175 cars and approximately 20 acres of more land to allow for expansion,” the report stated. “A hospital with 100 beds will cost $2.5 million, exclusive of site costs. The operating expenses for three years will be approximately $2.5 million. Should it be the desire of the city to be largely responsible for the construction and operation of a hospital; to pay for its construction through the sale of bonds, sales tax or some form of revenue, collected by the city for that purpose, then the committee would suggest a hospital authority be created by the legislature for that purpose.

On Nov. 23, 1965, the day after the report was submitted, the city council decided to move forward and appointed a hospital site committee, established “for the purpose of examining possible location sites in the city for construction of a general hospital.” According to the minutes of the city council meeting, of particular interest were 41 acres of land reportedly offered as a gift to the hospital by a prominent family. The land was located at the intersection of Interstate 64 and Battlefield Boulevard. In response to the offer, forwarded by then Mayor G.A. Treakle, Councilman Forehand applauded the site and “stated the hospital committee can now move forward and take some positive steps enabling them to make a report within a few weeks.”

It would take far longer.

On March 31, 1966, the Virginia General Assembly, acting in response to a bill submitted by Del. Robert Gibson of Chesapeake, approved legislation creating the Chesapeake Hospital Authority, a tax-exempt, not-for-profit organization which held as its principal activity the ownership and operation of Chesapeake General Hospital. The authority was to be autonomous from the city, though its members would be appointed by the city council. It was the first of its kind in the state with its own enabling legislation from the General Assembly.

Two weeks later, the site committee would meet one more time to finalize the selection of a location for the hospital. They chose the property first mentioned by Mayor Treakle more than six months before. “The committee, in making its selection felt that the hospital location should be reasonably accessible to the center of community activities in that it would then serve best the public as well as the medical profession that would make use of its facilities,” the committee stated in its final report, urging the council to negotiate with the family on a purchase price.

Members of the committee subsequently requested that their group be disbanded and that the city council move forward to appoint members of a hospital authority, choosing, they hoped, “the most qualified and public spirited citizens available.”

It seemed they were well on their way.

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If We Had Funds, We Wouldn’t Have Needed Credibility

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he first meeting of the Chesapeake Hospital Authority was held on January 26, 1967. Dr. Stanley Jennings was named chairman. Also on the committee were Sid Oman, the funeral home director who had planned the city’s anniversary party; Lysle Lindsay, Jim Leftwitch, Dr. Horace Ashburn and James Garrett. The group had no budget, no office space. They would meet month to month in different locations. Still, they wasted no time. At the first meeting, they established an official letterhead and formed finance, grounds and constitution committees. Leftwich, named secretary of the authority, said their mission was simple: “Build us a hospital.”

“The first thing lacking was credibility,” Leftwich said in a recent interview. “We didn’t have funds. If we had had funds, we wouldn’t have needed credibility.”

The group remained optimistic. The March 22, 1967, edition of The Chesapeake Post, a local weekly newspaper, boasted the headline, “Chesapeake Hospital Plans Progress.” The article detailed a meeting of the Chesapeake Pilot Club, a service organization, the day before when Jennings told the group, “We have set June 1968 as the tentative date for the actual construction to begin on Chesapeake’s first hospital.”

There were reasons for optimism. After all, the city had started negotiations on the proposed hospital property off Interstate 64. A $1,000 check from Rosemount Christian Church had arrived, the first donation of its kind toward the construction of a new hospital. And, of course, the authority had the backing of the entire city council. Or so it thought.

In the coming months and years, three issues would continue to nag the young authority, each one at times bubbling to the surface: controversy over a site for the hospital, the need for state approval of federal money for the project and the political will of the Chesapeake City Council. “The idea was not all that popular at first,” said Judge Grissom. “In fact, several political leaders spoke out against it. Such a major undertaking was unfeasible for such a young and inexperienced city, was the thought. Old-timers felt the energy should be spent elsewhere – building schools for example. A couple of them did not see a need for a hospital because they could go into Norfolk.”

In the summer of 1967, plans for the hospital began to unravel. It started in August, when a realtor, assessing the proposed hospital site, estimated the 9

cost of the land at $3,000 an acre, for a total of $140,000. With that price in mind, Leftwich wrote a letter to the owners of the property, Greenbrier Holding Corp. “In view of the worthy goals of this authority and the need for the construction of this hospital, I want to assure you that both the members of the authority and the citizens of Chesapeake will be deeply grateful for whatever favorable consideration you are able to give us in this respect,” Leftwich wrote.

Five days later, he had his answer. The The land targeted by land targeted by the authority had 1,600 the Authority had 1600 feet fronting the Norfolk and Southern Railroad, making it “ideally suited” for feet fronting the Norfolk industrial or commercial development. and Southern Railroad, “Based upon the most valuable use of this making it “ideally suited” land, the actual value, which in our opinion is at least $8,500 per acre, excludes this for industrial or particular site for a hospital,” wrote Lattie Yates, administrator of the estate. commercial development.

Still, the authority wouldn’t walk away, keeping the Greenbrier property on its list of proposed sites for another year.

What members were hoping was that they’d be allowed to use a portion of the site for the hospital at the reduced $3,000 an acre price tag. It wasn’t until the summer of 1968, when the authority received a letter from attorney Sam Goldblatt representing a partner who owned one-seventh of the property, that it was obvious the deal was dead. It was time to look at new land.

On June 14, 1968, Evelyn Williamson contacted the authority offering to sell a plot of land on the west side of Battlefield Boulevard, near the proposed Great Bridge bypass. “The location of a medical facility for the City of Chesapeake must be weighed carefully, not only to meet the needs of today, but the demands of the future,” Williamson wrote in a letter. She proposed to sell the land to the authority for $4,800 an acre. Three days later, a second offer came into the authority, this one involving 30 acres on the east side of Battlefield Boulevard. The land was assessed at $6,500 but the owners were willing to sell it for $6,000 as long as the hospital was built within five years.

Land was not the only issue facing the authority. How were they going to pay for it? For that matter, how were they going to pay for the doctors, the nurses, the secretaries, the custodians and everyone else vital to a hospital’s success?

“We’d be at our meetings and say, ‘Why are we meeting if we don’t have anything?’” recalled Sidney Oman, a member of the authority who later served as mayor of Chesapeake. “There was a reason to have a hospital authority, but

the council wasn’t that responsive. They felt we couldn’t afford it and, well, there you go.”

Oman remembered a meeting where the authority was struggling to figure out how to pay for a land survey needed in time for a federal grant application.

Sitting around the table, the members present each reached into their pockets, pulled out $20 and placed it on the table. “From the beginning, there were strong feelings,” Oman said. “This is our city’s hospital. We don’t have any money, but we’re going to make it.”

That determination was tested early and often. On September 7, 1967, Carl Lindgren Jr., an architect from Richmond, appeared before the authority with a detailed plan of what would be needed to secure the hospital. He projected the construction cost would be $30,000 per bed, or about $3 million.

The minimum budget for the hospital would be $4 million, with an annual operating expense of about 40 percent of the capital outlay. As part of the presentation, Lindgren listed seven steps the authority would have to go through before construction, including a land survey, a consultant study on need, preparation of exact drawings in order for the city to apply for federal HillBurton funds, and preparation of construction documents.

One week after the presentation, even the newspapers had picked up on the size of the obstacles facing the authority. “The city will have to wait until 1969 for its new hospital,” stated an article in the Post. “A lot of ‘ifs’ must be dissolved: If the hospital authority can present a unified front, if the council will support them financially, if a site can be secured to meet stringent requirements and if Hill-Burton funds can be obtained.”

On October 5, 1967, in a report to the city council, authority members reported that the cost of the hospital would be $4 million, as estimated by the Richmond architect. They told the council that the Hill-Burton funds – administered by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare – would pay for 55 percent of the construction cost, or $2.2 million. The city would need to raise the remainder itself – through bonds, capital funds or a combination. “If city residents want a hospital in the near future,” Jennings said during the meeting, “then substantial financial backing must be obtained from the council to be complemented by donations from interested individuals and corporations.”

City council members were less than enthused. City administrators balked at the high numbers. Just under 5-years-old, the city had plenty of other needs such as roads and schools. Sewer lines had not been extended. Police and fire were a priority.

Authority members did what they had to; they went public with their frus-

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trations. Speaking to a crowd gathered at a public meeting, the authority members admitted the federal money was no longer a sure thing and that the idea of issuing bonds was controversial. In addition, there was no mention of the hospital in the city’s upcoming capital improvement budget. The authority had done its part, they said. They had offered to cut the proposed facility from 100 to 50 beds, hoping to entice the council to fund its construction. “It has reached the point that we must rally citizen support for the hospital in order for it to ever become a reality,” Jennings said.

By January 31, 1968, the issue of money came to a head in a meeting between the city council and the authority. The issue, again, was who would pay for the $1.8 million gap between federal money, which was by no means certain, and the cost of a 100-bed hospital. “The city fathers, like fathers everywhere, are sometimes caught up in the familiar dilemma whether to buy something the household ought to have or to do without it,” said Mayor Treakle during the meeting. “We need a hospital, but hospitals are extremely costly things.”

In March, the authority, again, turned to the residents. In a meeting with neighbors from the Essex Meadow, Red Oak Colony and Greenwood Estates civic leagues, authority members told the men and women that if they wanted a hospital, it was up to them. The authority had gone as far as it could. During the meeting, a resident stood to inquire what response the authority had received from the council regarding its request for financial reports. The answer: none. There had been no communication. Authority members went on to say they had no more answers; it was up to the citizens of Chesapeake.

Residents leaving the meeting told reporters the message had been, “take it or leave it.”

“Not one member of the authority voiced any confidence in getting the hospital at this meeting last week or even seemed hopeful,” a resident told the Post.

One week later, at a meeting packed with 40 residents in support of a hospital, Eugene Wadsworth walked to the microphone. Confusion and frustration is felt by the residents at this time, he told the council members. According to a newspaper article, Wadsworth warned the council that there was no turning back at this point. “Public concern for taking care of its health problems and support for securing a hospital had reached a point among the citizenry that turning back was out of the question,” Wadsworth said. He went on to outline a three-step plan designed to secure a hospital. The first step, he said, would be for the council to agree to pay $100,000 for a hospital site. Secondly, they would hold a series of public hearings designed to educate residents on the

intricacies of financing a hospital. Lastly, the council would require residents to petition the council for a referendum on a bond issue.

In the months that followed, much of what Wadsworth said at the meeting came to be true. The city council in an overwhelming majority agreed to spend $100,000 for a site for the hospital, though members did not pick out a site. The lone dissenter stated, “I am 100 percent in favor of a hospital, but I, for one, want to know where the location of this All three sites had hospital is going to be.”

In June 1968, the authority was ready to report been inspected and on the three sites under consideration – the Williamson site, the Greenbrier site and the Unser approved by the property, the one located north of Battlefield state for hospital Boulevard. All three sites had been inspected and approved by the state for hospital purposes. purposes.

According to the report, “It appears that these three sites are virtually equal as to location, access, utilities and desirability. While each site may have individual advantages, it is our conclusion that in every instance there are corresponding advantages unique to the other sites.” In other words, cost should be the most important factor. Or maybe not.

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The Suitor After the Bride

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ne month after the authority members forwarded their report on the possible hospital sites, they received word that Leigh Memorial Hospital was considering moving its location from Mowbray Arch along the Hague in Norfolk. The 65-year-old hospital would consider relocating to Chesapeake.

The hospital authority jumped at the news. “We’re like the suitor after the bride,” Jennings said to a local reporter. “If she can be courted, we’re courting her. We’ve been fighting for some time to get a hospital for Chesapeake.” Leigh Memorial represented a shortcut to the final product. Authority members as well as city politicians raced to take it.

On September 13, 1968, the administrator of Leigh Memorial forwarded two reports to its board members regarding the growth of Leigh, asking that neither be released to the public. One made its way to the hospital authority in Chesapeake. In the studies, consultants examined two possible locations for Leigh Memorial, which they dubbed “the friendly hospital.” One of the recommendations was for a site at the intersection of Interstate 64 and Battlefield Boulevard. The consultants recommended that Leigh transfer all of its programs related to health to a new site: “The owners of Leigh Memorial should enter into a series of discussions with those persons in authority who are attempting to procure hospital facilities for this general area that will allow a decision to be made regarding this location.”

Six days later, Leftwich sent a letter to the chairman of the executive committee regarding Chesapeake’s interest in Leigh. “The Chesapeake Hospital Authority is most interested in the relocation of Leigh Memorial Hospital in the city of Chesapeake, Virginia, in the event of a move by that institution from its present location,” Leftwich wrote. He offered to appear before the committee at the next meeting scheduled for October 4. He was scheduled, instead, for October 11. He would be given 30 minutes. It was an all-out campaign.

On October 9, two days before Leftwich was supposed to meet with the board, the authority informed local newspapers of their intention. Authority member Ray Morgan, an accountant, said Chesapeake residents would support the relocation because it would be quicker than building a hospital from scratch. “With Leigh,” Morgan said, “there would be a nucleus, a growing operation.” One week later, the Chesapeake Chamber of Commerce adopted a resolution in support of the city’s effort to lure Leigh Memorial. Their resolution was in response to a proposal by the authority outlining its offer: If Leigh should move to Chesapeake, the city council would include a bond referendum 14

to pay a “substantial portion” of the construction of a 200-bed hospital. In return, Leigh Memorial would furnish the remaining funds to construct a 200bed hospital. Chesapeake will furnish the site at a location mutually agreeable to the two institutions. The name of the hospital would remain in Chesapeake’s control.

One month later, on November 7, 1968, the directors of Leigh rejected Chesapeake’s offer. There have been many theories as to why. Some said it was the insistence that the hospital be named after Chesapeake. Others said it was never going to happen, anyway. It was simply a power play by Leigh officials who would soon enter into negotiations with Norfolk General to become a part of the proposed Norfolk medical complex.

Years later, executives at Leigh Memorial “We’ve been fighting for announced they would align with Norfolk sometime to get a hospital General and move to a location off Kempsville Road, near the border of for Chesapeake.”

Chesapeake, Virginia Beach and Norfolk.

– W. S TANLEY J ENNINGS J R .

Judge Preston Grissom, a vocal supporter of the Chesapeake hospital, who was later appointed to the Tidewater Regional Health Planning Council, met with Leigh executives during that time. In a recent interview, he remembered being told by the doctors present at the meeting that they “just didn’t want to practice that kind of medicine,” when referring to the proposed move to Chesapeake.

“In that meeting, I realized for the first time just how different their perspective was,” Grissom said. “It was ‘across the river.’ They even questioned whether the land was swampy. I was struck with that.”

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aced with the realization that they had lost Leigh, members of the authority began a new campaign, this one to force the city to allow voters to vote for a $4.5 million bond referendum to pay for a 115-bed hospital. Such a vote had already been scheduled for March 1969 for a host of new city services, such as roads, schools and sewer. The hospital would be just one thing more. In its report submitted to the council on December 10, 1968, the authority stated, “in view of the recent decision by the Trustees of Leigh Memorial Hospital to decline the offer made by the Chesapeake Hospital Authority for the relocation of Leigh to Chesapeake, the authority believes it is now timely to revaluate its position and to reaffirm its goal of obtaining hospital facilities within the city of Chesapeake. Toward that end, and with regard to the urgent need for such facilities, previously acknowledged by both council and the authority, we hereby restate our belief that it is imperative to proceed with the construction of these hospital facilities with all due haste.”

The members went on to urge the council to proceed with the purchase of a hospital site. “It is now the belief of the hospital authority that the proposed hospital, upon completion, can be operated without future financial liability on the city,” the report stated. “The economy of these four cities is such that the population will demand first-rate medical services and can afford the provision of a wide continuum of medical services.”

Not all city officials were convinced. Durwood Curling, the city planning director who would be named city manager, said he worried Chesapeake would be caught holding the bag for a hospital that could not make money. “In all candor, I had doubts about that hospital,” he said in an interview from his Great Bridge home. “I didn’t know whether it would make it economically or not. Are people from South Norfolk going to go to Great Bridge to go to the hospital? Where are you going to get the doctors to come from? How are you going to get people to use the hospital if they’re going to get transferred to Norfolk anyway? The city manager is looking at the money side of things; he’s worried about next year. I think the council was generally for it, but they were scared. What happens if it doesn’t work?”

Put more clearly, Raymond Morgan, a member of the authority, said, “The city was afraid it would be a first-aid station.”

By February 1969, the authority, now three years old, was tired. Instead of working with the city council, members decided to launch an attack, using the press and city residents. At the February 12 meeting, Sid Oman, vice chairman

of the authority, read a resolution adopted unanimously just two days before.

In that resolution, the authority threatened to withhold support for the city’s entire capital improvement package in the upcoming referendum, unless the council agreed to add the hospital to the vote. It was a gutsy move, holding the city hostage for their project. As a local reporter wrote in The Virginian-Pilot, the “council was caught by surprise. It had already placed $16,000 in the referendum to help the authority but had not expected to be asked to include construction funds. The size of the demand was also surprising.”

The council delayed considering the request for two days. On Thursday, residents supporting the hospital flooded the council chambers on behalf of the hospital. One of the first to speak was Dorothea Wadsworth, a tall, thin woman who represented the Pilot Club. Her husband, Eugene, had already appeared before the council on behalf of the hospital. Dorothea Wadsworth became one of Put more clearly, Raymond the most influential supporters of the Morgan, a member of the authority’s efforts, later helping organize a successful door-to-door fund-raising cam- Authority, said, “The city paign that raised $120,000 from Cheswas afraid it would be a apeake residents. A soft-spoken woman with a quiet and polite manner, Dorothea first-aid station.”

Wadsworth somehow grabbed the attention in what was otherwise a raucous meeting. “Safeguarding the health of citizens should be the first concern of the city,” she told the council. “There is a shortage of beds in the Norfolk hospitals and it would be difficult to cope with an emergency situation in the area. The hospital authority must be very discouraged and the people very tired.”

The city council buckled. In a resolution adopted later that evening, the council agreed to include $2.4 million for the construction of a hospital in the upcoming bond referendum. The wording read like a peace treaty between the two groups. “Whereas the Chesapeake Hospital Authority acknowledges council’s action as a positive and vital step toward the realization of the much-needed hospital and Whereas it appears the posture of the Chesapeake Hospital Authority toward the proposed may have been misinterpreted,” stated the resolution. The city also authorized a series of seven public hearings to be held throughout the city to talk about the items on the $32.5 million referendum, including $12.6 million for citywide sewer and water, $9.7 million for schools, $5.9 million for highway and drainage construction, $540,000 for fire stations, $475,000 for the city’s share in the cost of a library headquarters, $400,000 for an unspecified community college site, $290,000 for the development of parks

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What Happens if it Doesn’t Work?

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and recreational facilities and $135,000 for an addition to the Tidewater Detention Home.

One month later, on March 18, city officials watched in dismay as almost all of their bonds failed when put to the voters. Water. Sewer. Roads. All failed.

Hospital, library, schools and public safety passed. It was a blow to the city administration, a reminder that residents may have their own ideas of what is important. Though as one resident, quoted in the newspaper, said, “without water and sewer, what good is the rest of it?”

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A Site and A Sign

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eeks later, the city council followed through on its promise to the authority and purchased a site for the new hospital, 37.5 acres west of Battlefield Boulevard for $4,000 an acre. The action prompted an editorial in The Virginian-Pilot praising the purchase for enabling the authority to move forward with the hospital project. It stated, “This should start the wheels turning on a project that has stirred much public support in the city and has been for the most part, an innocent party to the whole site controversy.”

In the weeks that followed, the authority members began writing their first formal application for the Hill-Burton grant, even though they knew what the state facilities director thought of the plan. Even now, four years after the process had started, Chesapeake still remained split between Norfolk and Portsmouth. State officials were not convinced a hospital was necessary in the shadows of already existing institutions. State officials controlled where the money went. In a letter dated June 13, 1969, City Manager G. R. House Jr., pleaded with Robert Ham, director of the state’s Bureau of Medical and Nursing Facilities. “Mr. Ham,” he wrote, “the fast growing city of Chesapeake urgently needs the proposed general hospital sought by this application. Aside from the economic advantages of giving employment to approximately 200 professional and non-professional people of our city, the lack of hospital facil-

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ities jeopardizes the very health and welfare of our citizens.”

House went on to argue that Chesapeake was the fourth-largest city in area in the state and the ninth largest by population, yet it had no hospital. Growth in Chesapeake was expected to skyrocket in the next few years, transforming the rural borough into a city of more than 172,000 by 1985. Included with the application was a list of 110 area physicians who, when polled, said they supported the proposed hospital.

That summer, perhaps buoyed by the bond referendum, city officials ordered a sign reading, “Site of Chesapeake General Hospital,” to be placed along Battlefield Boulevard in front of the future hospital location. In a letter to City Manager House, Totsy Chewning, an engineer who had volunteered his help as a consultant to the authority, thanked the city for clearing the land and placing the sign. “I wanted to tell you how pleased I am with the clearing of the front part of the hospital site and the erection of the signs by the Public Works Department,” Chewning wrote. “It looks very nice and I am sure that it will let the citizens of Chesapeake know that the hospital has not been forgotten.”

The hospital had a site and a sign, visible signals that the project was under way. The group didn’t realize that what they really had was bad timing.

Federal money earmarked for the construction of hospitals was drying up because of budget cuts in Congress. President M. Nixon was trying to trim health care costs and he had focused on hospital construction as the preferred way. His belief was that expansion of existing facilities could handle the growing population and the increased need for hospital beds. That mentality had shifted into Virginia, by and large, where the State Bureau of Medical and Nursing Facilities had taken a hard line approach to new construction. Though the bureau, especially its director Robert Ham, would face mounting criticism from Chesapeake officials, its decision to reign in new construction would be echoed later by hospital administrators across the state, worried about a glut of hospital beds.

The need to regulate beds drifted south to Tidewater where health officials realized the region would be served best through an autonomous council which could assess health needs of the area and monitor new construction. Grissom, a lawyer in Chesapeake who had long championed the new hospital, was appointed to the board. At times, the group, called the Tidewater Regional Health Planning Council, met three nights a week, often until midnight.

Grissom said he often spent the remaining week nights meeting with Jennings and Leftwich. “It was a stressful time and yet you had this feeling that you were on the right track, so you had to stick with it. They learned as they went along.”

One lesson they had yet to learn – how to handle the state.

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I Believe This Can Be Done

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n September 29, 1969, Leftwich contacted Ham, who had finally agreed to meet with the Chesapeake delegation, to personally thank him. “Your very kind offer to travel here for the purpose of meeting with us will enable this entire group, rather than a small committee, to benefit from your comments,” Leftwich wrote.

One week later, Ham met with members of the city council and the hospital authority in Chesapeake after touring the region with other officials from the state agency. The chances of the authority securing a Hill-Burton grant were slim, he told the authority. Funds for the national hospital program were drying up because of budget concerns in Washington. President Nixon had indicated he wanted to see the money earmarked for expanding existing facilities rather than the construction of new ones. As a state, Virginia was only set to receive about $860,000 in aid for the coming year. That was the total for all of the projects proposed through the localities. Chesapeake, by being split between two medical districts, in a word, did not have a chance. “It appears you are a Johnny Come Lately located between two established cities that have seen fit to accommodate your city’s medical needs,” Ham told the authority. “They have been taking care of you all these years and they plan to continue to take care of you.”

Ham reiterated his opinions in a letter one week later to state Sen. William Hodges of Chesapeake to inform him not to get his hopes up regarding funding for the hospital. “You will realize, I am certain, that Hill-Burton funds are very limited and that we have far more applications for money than there are funds available,” Ham wrote in his letter. “The Chesapeake people were advised, well prior to their making their application, that such was the case and that it would be some time before they could possibly hope for funding.

Dividing a state into medical areas is not an exact science. However, the information that we have available does indicate that the area of Chesapeake east of the Elizabeth River should logically be a portion of the Norfolk area and the area of Chesapeake west of the Elizabeth River should logically be a portion of the Portsmouth area.”

Leftwich, responding to another meeting with Ham, this one in Richmond, wrote to thank him for his attention. In the letter, Leftwich told Ham the Chesapeake delegation realized the limitations on the Hill-Burton funds and that their application could not, at that time, be considered on equal footing with the other requests because of the division of medical districts. “We 21

will naturally continue to hope until the allocation period expires that somehow funds might become available to make a consideration of our application possible, “Leftwich wrote. “We recognize, however, that this possibility is slight. If it serves no other purpose, our application will, I hope, serve to focus attention on the recent growth and changes which have occurred in Chesapeake.”

On December 16, 1969, Ham informed Chesapeake City Manager House that the board overseeing allocation of Hill-Burton money, known as the Virginia Advisory Hospital Corporation, would meet January 22, 1970, to evaluate all of the applicants. He assured House there was no reason for anyone from Chesapeake to attend. “Although the council is willing to hear a representative of any applicant, it is apparent that representation on your behalf would be of little avail,” he wrote in a letter.

It was about this time, The letter prompted authority members to seek another meeting with Ham for an after four years of efforts explanation. Totsy Chewning, the engineer, and little improvement, attempted to contact the state officials. On that Sid Oman proposed December 31, 1969, New Year’s Eve, he was able to get through. Chewning met with that the group essentially Ham in his Richmond offices. Ham repeated his assertion that “it would be useless” for give up on the state and any representative from Chesapeake to federal money and form attend the January 22 meeting. Chewning informed the authority that Ham’s previous a private corporation. estimate that the Hill-Burton allocation for Virginia would be $860,000 was wrong. It now appeared that the state would have $1.8 million, more than double what was originally thought. Unfortunately, the money had already been allocated to other hospitals that were high on the priority list. Chesapeake was not among them. In the end, Chewning said, it was clear that the decision was “absolute and final” for this year. “In view of the above circumstances, I recommend that the hospital authority proceed with plans to achieve a hospital building without Hill-Burton funds for the first phase,” Chewning wrote to Jennings. “I believe that this can be done.”

On January 26, 1970, Ham officially put the issue to rest. In a letter to City Manager House, he wrote that the advisory council had received 21 applications requesting $31 million in Hill-Burton money. Virginia had not yet received word as to how much its share would be, but indications were that it would fall somewhere between $4 million and $6.6 million. “The applications were considered in order of priority and we are sorry we must inform you that

the council could not approve your project this year even on the basis of the maximum application,” Ham wrote.

The message was clear. Chesapeake was not going to obtain Hill-Burton money. Not this year. Perhaps not ever.

It was about this time, after four years of efforts and little improvement, that Sid Oman proposed that the group essentially give up on the state and federal money and form a private corporation. “Based on the fact that we have already spent a goodly sum for the preliminary studies and the introduction to Hill-Burton, which is giving to the state now less than they gave to the city of Norfolk last year,” Oman wrote, “I thereby propose the following:

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That the authority develop an open-stock company withdrawn from its present status; that we engage a bank or financial institution to sell stock in this hospital; that this authority become the corporate governing body of the stock corporation; that this authority negotiate with the city to see if we could legally rent the 37 and one-half acres from the city or to plan a longrange program of financing the land.”

It is unclear how far Oman’s proposal went. It would not be the last time the authority members considered throwing out their plans.

n February 19, 1970, authority members approved a resolution urging the city to withdraw its Hill-Burton applications. It was time to come up with a new strategy. “These circumstances demand that both the city and the authority be in a position to rechannel their efforts toward a new and workable program,” Leftwich wrote to City Manager House.

The next few months marked a time of retrenchment for the authority members, a chance for them to try to figure out where to go next. They still had the $2.4 million in bonds authorized by the 1969 referendum. Alone, it wasn’t enough. On March 16, 1970, the authority created a finance board to oversee a fund-raising campaign. They appointed Townsend Oast as chairman.

The purpose of the board was simple: “to engage in fundraising by public solicitation to build a hospital.”

On May 21, faced with losing even more time, the authority members ordered Chewning to file a second Hill-Burton application. They knew they had almost no chance. Ham had already informed the authority, again, that there was no possibility of the city winning a grant from the 1970 application.

“Frankly, we do not anticipate receiving any funds from this, but thought it best to file an application as a precautionary measure,” Jennings wrote to House, explaining why the authority had taken this unusual step. “In the meantime, the authority is proceeding with the idea of raising funds from the public to meet as much of the cost of the hospital as possible. We need to raise $1.1 million to go along with the maximum amount of the bond issue for $2.4 million. If we can raise more, we will use these funds to diminish the amount of money we would need from the proceeds of the bonds.” The authority contracted with a Cleveland fund-raising firm to assess how much money could be made through such a campaign.

In July 1970, Leftwich clipped an article that appeared in the The Virginian-Pilot. The article quoted Norfolk General officials as saying they had adopted a new policy restricting the use of the hospital to nonpaying patients.

The move, the officials said, “is directed at reducing the number of patients who live outside Norfolk but who make use of the hospital for free medical services.” Norfolk General estimated that 30 percent of its clinic patients lived outside of Norfolk. “We have got to be fair first to Norfolk people,” Roy R. Prangley, administrator of Norfolk General, was quoted as saying. On the surface, such a statement had nothing to do with Chesapeake General or the authority’s efforts to secure a hospital. And, yet it seemed to hit close to home.

This was proof, Leftwich thought as he placed the clipping in his file. This is what they’d been saying all along.

One night, later that month, as the authority meeting dragged past midnight, Ray Morgan, a fiery accountant, urged his colleagues to try to do something more. They needed to break free from the state officials who seemed bent on keeping Chesapeake in the pockets of Norfolk and Portsmouth. He didn’t want to point fingers. But perhaps the politics of medicine were playing a role.

Norfolk General was a powerful institution. Leaders in the city, including Dr. Mason Andrews, were trying to launch the Eastern Virginia Medical School.

Perhaps a hospital in Chesapeake posed a threat of some sort. Perhaps their influence was helping to sway Ham. “It’s time to fight fire with fire,” Morgan said.

“When somebody tells me you can’t do something, that makes me think I’m going to do it or else,” Morgan said in a recent interview. “We were the bad boys, the ones who wouldn’t go away.”

The next morning, authority members called Sen. William B. Spong and U.S. Rep. Watkins Abbitt. Within a few weeks, they met with them in their offices on Capitol Hill. Jennings, Leftwich, Morgan and On the surface, such a statement Chewning drove together in had nothing to do with Chesapeake Jennings’ car. They chipped in to pay for the gas. During the General or the authority’s efforts meeting, Leftwich explained to secure a hospital. And, yet it their frustration with the state officials who refused to seemed to hit close to home. consider Chesapeake as a separate health district, thereby robbing it of its ability to earn a Hill-Burton grant.

They asked if there was anything the politicians could do. “We believe the division of the city of Chesapeake into two separate medical areas, one allocated to the Norfolk area and the other to Portsmouth, is antiquated and totally unrealistic in view of the present geographical and political structure in the area as well as the tremendous increased population in Chesapeake,” Leftwich wrote in an August 6, 1970, letter to Spong. He asked the senator to help the authority identify any other money that might be available to help.

On August 18, 1970, two weeks after the meeting, Spong replied that his staff was looking into additional funding but, so far, had found only the HillBurton program. Rep. Abbitt informed the authority membeers that his staff had contacted Ham’s office and would advise them if there were any other developments. Ham responded quickly to Abbitt, informing him that the application for Chesapeake General was on file and that they were reviewing it

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The Politics of Medicine

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PHOTO BY J.T. McCLENNY

in detail. “We appreciate your interest in this matter,” he wrote.

One month later, pranksters struck the sign erected a year before on the site of the proposed hospital. They painted the word “woods” over “hospital” so that the sign now read, “Site of Chesapeake General Woods.” The newspaper published a photograph of the sign along with the caption, “An anonymous sign painter has altered the city’s sign on Battlefield Boulevard to better describe the surroundings. The sign has heralded the eventual construction of a municipal hospital for about a year, but no physical progress has been made and the 35-acre roadside plot has grown over with weeds.”

The words, meant as a joke, struck home. Leftwich, in a letter to Rep. Abbitt, said the caption “demonstrates a fairly prevalent attitude as well as some of the bitterness occasioned by the lack of any hospital facility in Chesapeake.”

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The News It Had Been Waiting to Hear

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wo weeks later, in a letter detailing the obstacles facing the hospital, Jennings sounded almost defeated. Listing all of the problems facing the funding of the project, the authority asserted, again, that the city would not be held responsible for its financial success. The authority recommended that no final plans on financing be made until the members learned how much could be gathered by fundraising. “The authority has found the cooperation of other health agencies has not been forthcoming in this venture and that there are many obstacles being thrown in the path of the development of a hospital for Chesapeake,” Jennings wrote in the letter. “The hospital authority believes that the development of this program is absolutely essential to the future growth, welfare and well-being of the city of Chesapeake. Without it, Chesapeake would always remain a step-child of this metropolitan area.”

In the months that followed, Chesapeake officials turned to two regional bodies for help. The first was the Southeastern Virginia Planning Council, an umbrella organization that tried to promote regionalism in the booming Hampton Roads economy. The second was the Tidewater Regional Health Planning Council, Grissom’s group. The planning council’s mission was to assess the health needs of the community and make recommendations to the state. For months, the council had been working with the bureau to study whether there was, indeed, a need for the Chesapeake hospital. Ham, in October 1970, acknowledged being contacted by the planning council and working with them, “in a joint study of the area in an effort to determine if Chesapeake should remain in the Norfolk-Portsmouth hospital service as currently indicated in our state plan.” He would not release the results of the joint study.

That same month, Chewning, whose firm had been hired to oversee the plans for the hospital, wrote a letter to the planning district commission, asserting that the project would not duplicate services already offered or being discussed by the proposed medical school complex. ‘The hospital authority feels strongly that a hospital is absolutely needed in the city to provide not only medical services for its residents but to enable the city to attract additional industries and institutions that will be of benefit to the entire area,” Chewning wrote. “Without a hospital, the authority feels that Chesapeake would be relegated to an inferior position in the metropolitan scheme.”

It was the start of an all-out campaign. One month later, Stanley Jennings wrote to the City Council begging for their help in establishing Chesapeake General Hospital. In the letter, Jennings pointed out that the city had a popu27

lation of 90,000 and yet had no hospital. The national average for beds per 1,000 residents was between four and five. In the four-city area, the ratio was fewer than three beds. In addition, Chesapeake had at the time one doctor for every 5,000 residents. Virginia Beach had faced a similar situation in 1960, Jennings wrote, when they begged for permission to build a 160-bed community hospital. With the hospital now completed, the city enjoyed a doctor/patient ratio of one physician for every 1,500 residents. The improvement was due to the start of the hospital. In a stinging rebuke of the state agencies, Jennings continued:

The next day, Jennings sent a second letter. This one went to Sydney S. Kellam, president of the Tidewater Council. Kellam, a prominent politician in Virginia Beach, had been through a similar process with the formation of his city’s first general hospital. “As you are aware, it is our intention to construct a facility of approximately 100 beds for general acute care on a site on Battlefield Boulevard, which has already been purchased for that purpose by the city of Chesapeake,” Jennings wrote. “We are now deeply committed to this plan both in time and investment as well as planning. It is unthinkable to us, as I am sure it must be to you, that an independent political subdivision such as Chesapeake should have no general hospital located within its political boundaries.”

The timing of the letter was perfect. According to Grissom, the planning council had just received a letter from an assistant administrator at Norfolk General Hospital openly opposing the construction of Chesapeake General Hospital. It was the first time the Chesapeake contingent had open opposition.

The move by the Norfolk hospital struck a chord with Kellam. At the subsequent meeting, Kellam said, “This could happen to either one of us.” It was obvious that to combat an attack from any one member, there would need to be more effort at working together. “We felt the time had come we needed to work out a formula, what the need would be for all of us, all jurisdictions,” Grissom said.

Less than one month later, the authority received the news it had been waiting to hear. The Tidewater Regional Health Planning Council had voted to “recommend to the State Bureau of Medical and Nursing Facilities that the city of Chesapeake be considered as a distinct service area for federal funding.” In a “It is unthinkable to us, letter to the authority, D.J. Moore, execuas I am sure it must be tive director of the planning council, said the board had also endorsed the city’s pend- to you, that an independent ing Hill-Burton application with the folpolitical subdivision such lowing recommendations: that the city seek association with a major full-services hospi- as Chesapeake should have tal in the area, that they establish a working no general hospital located relationship with the Chesapeake Mental Health Services Board, that it consider si- within its political multaneous construction of a medical arts boundaries.” building and that ity avoid unnecessary duplication of medical services, i.e. no – W. S TANLEY J ENNINGS J R . maternity beds. The council recommended that the hospital be built with 104 beds, 72 for medical/surgical patients, six for ICU and 26 for extended care. The decision to endorse the Chesapeake hospital was based, in part, on the study conducted by the planning council that found 44 percent of the residents in Chesapeake were more than 20 minutes away from emergency hospital care by emergency vehicles. The proposed hospital would cut that travel time in half.

It was a big victory, the first time a governing body outside of Chesapeake had endorsed the city’s plans. Headlines in The Virginian-Pilot remarked on the boost to Chesapeake efforts. The Chesapeake “city administration and hospital authority now harbor optimism that the regional health officials cite a critical lack of area surgical-medical care facilities.” The council’s finding was based on the study it had conducted with the State Bureau of Medical and Facilities.

The excitement wouldn’t last. Though the regional council could assess the health needs of an area and even make recommendations, it couldn’t build a hospital. That power still belonged to Ham, the state’s director of the Bureau

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The preceding brings the realization that inconvenience, mal-distribution of health facilities and personnel; hazards to the health of Chesapeake citizens and a generally inequitable hospital situation exists in this area.

This situation apparently has the blessing of our state health department since it is through that department’s Bureau of Medical and Nursing facilities with Mr. Robert Ham as director that Chesapeake needs have been considered . . . As a new city, we are desperately trying to be self-sufficient in the basic services to our citizenry and the citizenry have expressed their support of such efforts. Please give any aid, advice or direction you feel will be helpful in providing adequate medical facilities and services to our citizenry. Let’s sever the umbilical cord from medical facilities and personnel extending into our surrounding cities. A Chesapeake hospital would hopefully serve as that long-awaited undertaking in Chesapeake in which all Chesapeake citizens could develop pride, forget their sectionalism and establish an identity for our city.

Medical and Nursing Facilities. In a newspaper article outlining the planning council’s endorsement of Chesapeake General, Ham told reporters he completely disagreed with the findings of the regional council. He did not say how or why. He acknowledged he had not contacted either the planning council or the Chesapeake Hospital Authority. He said only that his agency had conducted a study of Chesapeake’s medical needs and that the study differed in conclusion. The decision on whether to split Chesapeake from Norfolk and Portsmouth would be made by the advisory council and Ham said he “rather doubts the city will be set aside.”

It was a huge blow. Reeling from the attack, the authority fired back, sending copies of the council’s recommendation and the ensuing newspaper articles to Sen. Spong and Rep. Abbitt. Two days later, the City Council adopted a resolution demanding to know why – despite endorsements from the regional council and the Southeastern Virginia Planning District Commission – the state Medical and Nursing Facilities Services had turned down their request for a hospital. They asked that the agency reveal the study they used to reach their decision.

On January 5, 1971, Ham contacted Rep. Abbitt regarding the controversy, saying his office disagreed with some of the numbers used by the Tidewater Council in its study. “Our other disagreements involve opinions of need in view of present facilities and utilization and the requirements for additional facilities as related to time and distance for emergency services,” Ham wrote in his letter to the congressman. “It is our opinion that consideration of further expansion of medical facilities in this area should involve the entire area of Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach. It is our further opinion that the great need in the Tidewater area at this time is for modernization and upgrading of existing medical facilities.” Ham went on to say he had forwarded his conclusions to the advisory board, which would be deciding the issue at its next meeting, “the time of which has not been set.” He said that after the advisory board made its recommendation the findings “will be available for public use.”

In other words, the state advisory council would be making a decision on the future of Chesapeake’s health care based on statistics and recommendations that no one in Chesapeake had seen or would be allowed to see. The move angered members of the authority, who saw it as further proof of the bias Ham had shown toward their city. In a letter to Rep. Abbitt, Chewning blasted Ham. “The procedure stated by Mr. Ham will prevent those in this area from studying his data and making recommendations prior to the time Mr. Ham makes his views known to the advisory council and such secrecy precludes the city of

Chesapeake from presenting their data,” Chewning complained. “The cold fact is that Mr. Ham does not feel the ninth-largest city in the Commonwealth of Virginia should have any hospital at all. It is my opinion that Mr. Ham is opposed to any hospital being in this city of 90,000 people and that these people will be required to run elsewhere for their medical needs. He knows full well that if the city of Chesapeake were set aside as a separate medical planning district, as it should be, the city of Chesapeake, without facilities, would have a high priority on the Hill-Burton list. It is evident Mr. Ham is trying to thwart the rightful development of medical facilities in the city of Chesapeake.”

The authority did not stop there. In the weeks that followed, Jim Leftwich wrote to Sen. Spong and state Sen. William Hodges to complain of the treatment. He wrote to state delegates Stanley Bryan and Robert Gibson, the politician who had introduced the original legislation creating the Chesapeake Hospital Authority more than five years before. Gibson forwarded the complaint to Gov. Linwood Holton, explaining the issue and asking for his help. In that letter, Gibson said he “hoped (Ham’s) proposal will not be the recommendation to the Virginia Advisory Hospital Council because it is difficult for our citizens to comprehend a greater need than a local hospital for 90,000 inhabitants. Our citizens have been most patient and cooperative in the presentation of their hospital program for the last few years, but they are upset and alarmed and time is running out.”

Two weeks later, on February 4, 1971, Jennings, along with Leftwich and Morgan, drove to Richmond to meet with the governor. They were escorted into his office by delegates Bryan, Gibson and state Sen. Hodges. Holton was polite, they would report later, even cordial. The meeting was brief. When it was over, the authority members left somewhat disappointed. Gov. Holton had said he would study the matter. He had made no promises. Later that night, in a meeting with the Chesapeake City Council, Leftwich said he truly believed 1971 would be the crossroads in Chesapeake’s attempt to get a hospital. “The door was not closed,” he said of the meeting in Richmond. But it was definitely closing.

“If we don’t win our bid for recognition this spring,” Leftwich said, “I hesitate to believe we can expect Hill-Burton funds for many years to come.”

Part of the pessimism was due to growing concerns among health officials that Congress, faced with budget cutbacks and an expensive war in Vietnam, was pushing to erode the federal money. Those worries came to fruition the day after the authority’s trip to Richmond when an article in the magazine, Hospital Week, detailed efforts by the Nixon administration to “eliminate HillBurton hospital construction grants.” The article stated “President Nixon has

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resumed the effort to eliminate Hill-Burton grants for hospital construction.

The administration has allocated $85 million in grants for ambulatory facilities, $42.2 million for long-term care facilities and $45 million for modernization, but it omitted funds for new hospital construction.”

An editorial in The Ledger-Star credited the authority with keeping its mission. “The disheartening part of the problem is that, even though it is something of a quirk that has put Chesapeake in a disadvantageous position, no one with the power to do so seems disposed to make any changes. There is to be sure an element of civic pride in Chesapeake’s desire for a hospital of its own even though the city borders both Norfolk and Portsmouth. But the effort springs from more than this . . . Encouragingly, despite the string of disappointments, the hospital authority and the city council haven’t indicated that they’re ready to abandon or even trim down the hospital proposal. Chesapeake may yet have its hospital.”

Members of the authority were beginning to doubt they would. Despite studies indicating the need for a hospital, despite political support in Richmond and Washington, D.C., despite the vocal and emotional urging of many of its residents, Chesapeake was no closer to building a hospital than it had been in 1964, when Jennings began circulating his petitions. Perhaps that’s why, in March of 1971, when most hope was gone, Jennings took a phone call from John M. DeBlois of DeBlois Inc. Perhaps that’s why he listened as DeBlois outlined his plans to build a private hospital in Chesapeake. Perhaps that’s why he kept a copy of the proposed transaction for more than 30 years.

It was his fall-back, he later said. When DeBlois contacted him, Jennings knew he’d have a hospital. The particulars of the deal seemed appealing. DeBlois, working on behalf of a client, would build a $4.5 million hospital as a joint venture with local doctors. The doctors would own the hospital for 10 years at which time, the client would have the right to buy back the hospital. As he studied the proposal, Jennings remembered Ham’s warnings from years before.

He placed the letter in his file.

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It’s a Question of Whether You Want It

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n April 9, 1971, faced with the notion that time was slipping away, the hospital authority asked the city council to authorize a second bond referendum, this one for $1.6 million in construction funds. The bonds would be paid off by the anticipated hospital revenues. Authority members told the council that construction on a hospital could begin as early as 1972 should the referendum be passed by the voters. If it failed, perhaps it was time to abandon the idea of a hospital. The entire hospital project was forwarded to City Manager Durwood Curling for review.

While the authority members were scrambling locally for ways to pay for a hospital, members of the Virginia Hospital Advisory Council, meeting in Richmond, agreed to approve a federal loan for $561,000 to the Chesapeake project. The loan Authority members had the potential to increase to $700,000. The told the council that council did not set aside Chesapeake as a medical district but realigned the entire Tidewater construction on a region into a single district. “We’re totally conhospital could begin as fused at this time,” Jennings told reporters of the news. “We don’t understand the realign- early as 1972 should ment and don’t know the terms or stipulations the referendum be of the guaranteed loans.” Word of the loan drew mixed reaction. The size was too small to aid in passed by the voters. the construction; the authority would still need to hold a second bond referendum. Jennings said he believed the loan was an afterthought, the crumbs left over when others had been fed. He described it as “just one step above ignoring us.”

They may have been lucky to get anything. In the report released by the state council at the same time as the decision, health officials stated that “the interests of all concerned would be best served by considering this total area in planning for construction and modernization of medical facilities. Adequate medical facilities are available within reasonable driving distance and time to all residents of the region. Programmed modernization, replacement and expansion of existing medical facilities should meet the population needs through 1975.” The report stated that separating Chesapeake into a single district would automatically give it the top priority for federal funding even if such priority was not appropriate. The report also asserted that there were plenty of beds in the region. In 1969, the average utilization of hospital beds was 81 per33

cent. In addition, there were plans in the works for major expansions at Norfolk General Hospital, which were not included in the study because of discussions surrounding the establishment of a Norfolk Medical Center complex, a complex that was supposed to include Leigh Memorial and a medical school already under development.

In truth, the numbers seemed to justify Ham’s preoccupation with the expansion of existing facilities. However, the hospital authority members were ready to move on.

On May 18, 1971, one month after receiving the loan offer, Jennings wrote to the city council asking them to delay consideration of a second bond referendum. The authority, he said, had decided to accept the loan. He asked that the council authorize the sale of the original $2.4 “Ok,” responded million bonds so that the hospital could begin getting Curling. “You’re its finances together. City Manager Durwood Curling said he would not recommend selling the bonds until going to start a the authority presented the city with detailed information on the type of hospital that it proposing to build hospital. Where and a letter of recommendation from a consultant on are you going to the feasibility of a hospital at the selected location. He get the money to warned them to present the recommendations for “layman understanding and easy digestibility.” pay your bills?”

In an interview, Curling recalled an afternoon when Leftwich dropped by his office at city hall.

“It’s not a question whether you can afford it or not,” Leftwich told him.

“It’s a question of whether you want it.”

“Ok,” responded Curling. “You’re going to start a hospital. Where are you going to get the money to pay your bills?”

One month later, the issue of finances came to a head in the middle of a city council meeting. A reporter for The Ledger-Star described the situation this way: “The city hospital project was still ailing today. The diagnosis? Financial fuzziness complicated by council-manic caution. The prognosis: uncertain.

The patient was in no great danger of dying, but may have to remain bedridden for a while longer.” The reporter was referring to an exchange between Curling, the city manager, and the authority members present at the meeting. authority members, when asked by the council whether the hospital would be self-sustaining, distributed a financial statement suggesting the hospital would have an operating profit after two years of $340,000. Curling didn’t buy it.

“Who’s going to meet the debt payments during the first two years while the hospital is being built and not making money?” he asked. “You’re either talk-

ing about more than $4 million or you are talking about a smaller hospital.”

One month later, the council agreed to issue the bonds, though somewhat reluctantly. Several of the council members said they were concerned about tying the city’s credit to a project that did not have conclusive construction and equipment costs estimated by the consultants. Councilman Clarence Forehand, who led the city’s first effort to secure a hospital, said they were at a “point of no return” and he warned his colleagues that there was a possibility that future tax increases would be needed to offset losses at the hospital. “I’m willing to take that chance,” Forehand said during the meeting. “But I don’t want anyone saying later that a bunch of numbskulls said the taxes wouldn’t go up.”

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You Can Have the Money, But Not Now

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he vote to sell the bonds gave the green light for the authority to move forward with its plans. That summer, members hired John Waller and Alan Sadler as architects for the new hospital. They contacted Townsend Oast, the chairman of the fund-raising division, and told him it was time to start work.

And, perhaps most importantly, they began negotiating with candidates interested in the administrator position. On August 20, 1971, Chewning informed the city the authority had adopted its first annual budget. The amount was $228,500 and was to cover the expenses expected in the preparation of plans and specifications along with the taking of bids. Another $20,000 was earmarked for a hospital administrator who would work as a consultant during the planning phases of the hospital, and $4,800 was to pay for a secretary and other administrative expenses. Most of the money, $163,000, would pay for the architect and the preparation of the plans.

The city wasn’t satisfied. When, asked City Manager Curling, did the authority think it would receive its Hill-Burton loan?

In an August 30 letter to Curling, Chewning advised the city manager that under the provisions of the Hill-Burton act, the authority had to arrange for a loan from a local bank which would be guaranteed by the state of Virginia for repayment and the assumption of 3 percent of the interest rate. “The guarantee would not be made available for such time as the hospital has been completely constructed and ready for operation,” Chewning wrote. As it now stood, it would be years before Chesapeake would see the Hill-Burton money.

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Starting With an Empty Lot

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n September 1971, the authority members hired a consultant to help with the building stages and, once construction was under way, serve as the hospital’s first administrator. In some ways, it was a gutsy move, issuing a contract when there was no formal agreement yet on how the hospital was going to be built, or when, for that matter. The authority members interviewed dozens of candidates for the job before settling on Donald S. Buckley, an assistant professor with the University of North Carolina School of Medicine at Chapel Hill.

Buckley had a unique qualification; he knew the area well. He had been assistant administrator of Norfolk General in the mid-1960s, the same time that Jennings, Morgan and Leftwich were scrambling to find a way to build a hospital of their Donald Buckley own.

Buckley, who was 34 at the time, liked the idea of a challenge, of starting with an empty lot. “It was a small group, a great opportunity,” Buckley said in a recent interview. “When I agreed to come, I don’t think they had any money in the bank, maybe $300. I wanted to know what it was like to put together a hospital from scratch.”

Buckley, a tall, thin man with dark hair and thick brown-rimmed glasses, had an immediate presence, one many described later as imposing. The first time Buckley met with the architects, after being hired, was in a restaurant at the Raleigh/Durham Airport outside of Chapel Hill. The architects had purchased plans and specifications from a hospital in Hendersonville, N.C., hoping to use the blueprints for Chesapeake General Hospital. Buckley rolled the plans onto the restaurant table. He shook his head. No, he said. The plans wouldn’t work. He had something else in mind. “They didn’t like that,” Buckley recalled. “They thought they were home free, saving time and money.”

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Once every other week, Buckley would travel from Chapel Hill to meet with authority members in the First & Merchants Bank Building and elsewhere in Great Bridge. The meetings would go on so long that the bank officials eventually kicked them out. They didn’t want to pay for a security guard to stay until 1 or 2 in the morning, any more. The next day, before returning to Chapel Hill, Buckley would meet again with the architects, Waller & Sadler, in their offices on Laskin Road. Buckley was pushing to build an all private-room hospital (“When you go to a hotel, do you want to share a room with someone you don’t know?” he’d quip.) with the capability to expand to 350 beds. It would be the first of its kind in the state of Virginia, where most hospitals had adopted a combination of wards and semi-private rooms. “We had a chance to start something,” Buckley said in an interview. “My feeling was, let’s not just latch onto how everyone else does it. We had to wedge ourselves in with all these established hospitals. Why win a battle and lose the war? I knew we had to be different. We had to be better.”

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Just Enough Gambling Blood

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n November 4, 1971, a few weeks after Buckley had been hired as a consultant, members of the authority were invited to meet with representatives from the state regarding their Hill-Burton application. The meeting, organized by Ham’s office, would take place at 10 a.m. in the Golden Triangle hotel in downtown Norfolk. Organizers requested that the authority send officials who could represent the project and speak to local financing. Details were sketchy as to what took place at the meeting, held in a private hotel room on a top floor of the hotel. Ray Morgan, the accountant, said in an interview that the representatives from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare told the authority members they had a choice. They could take the $700,000 loan guarantee already offered or they could rescind it and hope for a shot at $1 million in grant money that may come available.

There was no guarantee they would get the grant money or that it would even exist, but there was a decent chance. The decision was theirs. They had an hour to make it. Morgan described what happened next. Leftwich, who Morgan described as the conservative of the bunch, was not inclined to give up a sure thing for the idea of another. Walter Broadnax, a former Navy architect, sided with Leftwich. “Stanley and I were the wildcats,” Morgan said. “If we turned that money in and didn’t get anything, how would we explain it?”

Morgan looked at Jennings across the hotel room.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“I’ve got just enough gambling blood in me to go for it,” Jennings replied.

The men left the hotel room that day without their $700,000 loan guarantee. They didn’t say a word about what they had gambled. It would be months before they knew if they had won.

In the weeks that followed, the authority pored over details for the new hospital. The architects had proposed a T-shaped patient floor with about 50 beds per nursing station. Buckley wanted the design based on a 34-bed-to-station ratio. It was up the board members to decide. Buckley had started meeting with local physicians, hoping to get them on board. He’d met with former colleagues at Norfolk General Hospital, who offered to help the fledgling hospital with any information they could share.

On May 12, 1972, six months after the meeting at the Norfolk hotel, authority members learned their gamble had paid off. Robert Ham, the director of facilities who had so often blocked the authority’s attempt to secure a hospital, wrote, “This is to advise you that the Virginia Advisory Hospital 39

Council approved an allocation of $1 million in grant funds to your project.”

The note, though brief, was what they’d been waiting for since 1967, when Leftwich and Jennings first made the drive to Richmond to meet with Ham. The $1 million grant would be added to the $2.4 million in municipal bonds, bringing the authority ever closer to paying for the $4.5 million hospital. The city now needed to raise the remaining $1.2 million from a fund-raising campaign. Finally, it seemed, there would be a hospital. One month later, the authority, in a report to the city council, advised the city that to receive the grant money, construction on the hospital would have to begin by May 1, 1973. Architects were already under way and expected to have plans ready for review in July 1972. Conflicts, though, were not yet resolved. On September 13, 1972, the Virginia Hospital Association circulated a petition to area hospital administrators and employees, urging them to support an effort in Richmond to curtail the construction of new hospitals by forcing new hospitals and nursing homes to obtain certificates of need prior to licensing. “Signs of overbuilding acute and extended care facilities in this state are obvious to all but a few special interest groups,” wrote Stuart Ogren, executive director of the association. He went on to lament that Virginia already ranked at the top of the ratio of hospital beds to population, closing the memo with the plea, “The hospital you save may be your own.”

Indeed, even the Tidewater Regional Health Planning Council, seemed worried with the number of hospital beds. In a report issued on August 29, 1972, the council pointed out that “overbedding” was a serious issue facing Tidewater. According to its analysis, the four-city area at the time had 2,420 beds. The report stated that on any given day in 1972, the average bed demand was only 1,944, resulting in 476 unoccupied beds. And, even though bed demand would increase to 2,207 by 1977, the number of hospital beds will have grown to 3,254 beds, resulting in an excess number of 1,047 beds on any given day. Because of these numbers, the council proposed a six-month moratorium on “all hospital construction plans, which have not been previously reviewed and endorsed by the council.” Such a moratorium would “permit a rational and effective evaluation of the new directions in health care which are being presented to the four city area residents. More importantly, however, the moratorium will allow the implementation of decisions which are based on logic rather than on an emotional atmosphere of haste and intimidation.”

In 1973, the Virginia General Assembly adopted the law requiring hospitals to obtain certificates of need from the state. The process did not affect the initial plans for Chesapeake General because it had already received prior approval.

However, it would come back to haunt them in the future.

Yet, optimism prevailed, and one month later, in a photograph on the front page of The Chesapeake Post, Buckley stood next to the large sign marking the site of the hospital; the word “woods” has been painted back to “hospital.” Buckley leaned against the wood, his right hand clenched into a fist.

The headline on top of the page stated, “The man at the top starts at the bottom.” The article announced that Chesapeake General had hired its first administrator. Speaking for the authority, Leftwich told reporters they had “screened approximately two dozen applicants, looking for someone with the right background to tackle this job successfully. It was difficult to find people like that, willing to do some trailblazing.”

Buckley set up shop in Room 122 of the Great Bridge Professional Building on Mount Pleasant Road, next to the Chamber of Commerce. “Our door will be open,” Buckley told reporters, shortly after arriving. “Citizens of the area have known for several years of a move under way for a hospital. They must be wondering now when it will come about.” Buckley defined the idea of Chesapeake General as a community hospital, one that does not forget its patients when they walk out the door. “A hospital must be cognizant of general health care for the community,” Buckley said. “I, as administrator, must be willing to cooperate with health care programs to improve the health care of the community. We can’t look at a hospital in an isolated condition. It should involve all health agencies, the tentacles of complete health care.”

Buckley said the site for the hospital would be cleared within the next few weeks. He planned to move to a trailer at the construction site in about 30

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days. That move would be delayed at least once when the company called him to tell him the trailer had burned in a fire.

In November 1972, Buckley presided with Jennings and Marion Whitehurst, the mayor of Chesapeake, at a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the middle of the cleared, but muddy site. They each wore large carnations and hard hats. The ceremony was to commemorate the opening of a light green construction trailer, what would become both the headquarters for Buckley and a symbol of so much more. A sign reading “Administrative Office, Chesapeake General Hospital” was hammered into the dirt outside.

In a letter published the next week in The Chesapeake Post, Buckley urged residents to remain involved in the hospital planning. “The hospital has been planned for several years and many hours have been given by citizens in an effort to locate a hospital in Chesapeake,” Buckley wrote. “Planning is a slow process that pays big dividends in the end results. We are still in the planning stages but are nearer to seeing construction under way. Our planning must continue if we are going to meet the 1980 and 1990 health and hospital care needs of this area. The task before us cannot be accomplished in a ‘one-man effort’ but through the combined desires, efforts and cooperation of all the citizens of Chesapeake.”

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We’re All Working to Build Chesapeake

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he site was cleared. The trailer was in place. For the first time, it looked as if the city would have its hospital.

The residents who had fought so hard to win state approval now had to launch another campaign – this time to raise more than $1.2 million in donations. The money was needed to fill the expected gap between the $4.6 million price tag for the new hospital, the $2.4 million bond issue and the $1 million Hill-Burton grant. At this point, residents knew they had their hospital. They wanted to make sure it didn’t fail on opening day.

The problem? There was no money. And, fund-raising campaigns cost money. That fall, four members of the authority took out a $20,000 loan from a local bank, each of them cosigning $5,000. The money would pay for the brochures and flyers to circulate the city. The materials would be used in a nine-pronged attack designed to muster support from businesses, industry and charities.

Dorothea Wadsworth, the soft-spoken proponent of the hospital since the mid-1960s, headed up a residential campaign that in May of 1973 would involve 1,300 volunteer workers pouring over all neighborhoods in the 353square mile city. The campaign was coordinated out of two headquarter trailers, one in Great Bridge and one in Western Branch. There were six borough coordinators assigning the door-to-door volunteers. “The fund drive will not be an annual event,” Mrs. Wadsworth said at the time “The need is now and the opportunity to give is now. Each person must search his soul to determine the validity of this cause as compared to his ability to give. When our worker rings your door bell, a pledge of your fair share will make our residential fund drive a success.”

The first receipt, numbered 01, was given to a group of teenage girls who almost a year before raised $7.76 by putting on a musical show in their garage.

Wadsworth handed the receipt in a simple ceremony. “This is going to require the cooperation of everyone in the city to reach that goal,” Mrs. Wadsworth told reporters. “It is fitting that the children should lead them.”

On April 26, 1973, the newspaper The Chesapeake Post, hosted a dance marathon to raise money for the hospital. The tickets cost $10 a couple.

Contestants received a 15-minute break every hour but were barred from leaving the dance floor at any other time. The contest would continue until the last pair was standing. “Think you can do it?” stated the promotion in the Post.

“Why not give it a try? Mix a little fun and a lot of pleasure in with some good 43

fund raising. After all, we’re all working to building Chesapeake.”

A weeklong push to raise money was launched on May 18, 1973, with a “Cornerstone Banquet” held at the Moose Lodge on George Washington Highway. Tickets to the banquet cost $6 and those attending could sign a booklet that would be placed in the cornerstone of the building. Also planned for that week was a benefit square dance at the Great Bridge Shopping Center with music by the Broken Spokes. Clubs from the area high schools held pep rallies, and a rock concert was held at the South Norfolk Drive-In Theater.

The goal of the residential campaign was to raise $60,000. The volunteers would double that amount.

In a letter to a local newspaper, Vista Cotten, co-chairman of the residential fund drive, thanked the volunteers for their efforts. “After working with so many of you during this campaign,” she wrote, “I feel that the signs at the entrances of Dorothea Wadsworth (far right) plots our city reflect our true spirit as the citywide residential fund-raising ‘Virginia’s Finest City.’ I noted with campaign. interest the young lady that stopped by my home to solicit for the hospital. It was a rather warm day and she had two children with her. She was carrying one and pushing the other in a carriage. I knew that she must have had a great number of things she could be doing at home and I mentioned this to her. She replied, ‘I believe in this hospital.”

The residents of Chesapeake, along with local businesses and other organizations, raised more than $1.24 million by the time the hospital opened.

Outdoor cookouts, bazaars, raffles, walkathons and garage sales were held on behalf of the hospital, the police and fire departments played tackle football, while Rotarians scheduled a ball. A selling feature, according to The VirginianPilot, was the ability of an individual or group to secure a plaque of dedication for a certain area.

“I have been in the area for 35 years and I have never seen its people as united behind any cause as they were to build this hospital,” said E.W. Chittum, chairman of the drive at the time. “I think our drive captured as much grass-roots support as any ever conducted in the Tidewater area. And, every community in the city contributed.”

It truly was the city’s hospital.

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What You Need to Do to Get the Job Done

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rom her home in Great Bridge, Donna McLees read with interest all the news about the proposed hospital. She had just given birth to her second child when she decided to pick up the phone and call the new administrator.

Would he be hiring anyone?

“He asked me to come in and talk with him,” said Mrs. McLees, whose name was Harrell at the time. “I just thought it was going to be wonderful to see our city have a hospital. I thought without question that this is where I want to be. I felt he was a visionary. He was someone who could take a vision and bring it to a reality.”

McLees soon was hired as Buckley’s assistant. She moved into the Great Bridge Professional Center, and then to the light green trailer, nestled next to a pile of gravel on the muddy construction site. Her office was in a room so small that if two people came in at the same time, they would have to edge sideways through the narrow passage to the adjoining conference room, used for authority meetings.

There was a dirt walkway to the door. The trailer was powered by a gas generator which held enough power for four hours at a time. Each morning, on his way into work, Buckley stopped at the B. M. Williams fire station to load up on gas before coming to the trailer. Buckley often had to take a broom handle and bust through the water that had frozen in the toilet. “It was living in primitive conditions,” McLees said in an interview. Buckley’s office was on the other side of the trailer and housed a desk and a large drafting table.

The days were busy and long, running from 8 a.m. until midnight or later.

On most days, McLees would arrive and find that Buckley had already been there, started the generator and gone. He always knew he had to return by 11 a.m. with another tank of gas. “I would absolutely say Mr. Buckley set the stage for me to say a workday doesn’t have a time frame,” McLees said. “It doesn’t.

It’s what you need to do to get the job done.”

The longest days were those when the hospital authority met, which was as often as once a week. The meetings stretched at times until 1 a.m., as the members debated details of the hospital, such as the color of the bricks or whether to have fluorescent lights in the parking lot. One meeting went so late, the parents of Vista Cotten, who had been appointed to the authority, had a police officer stop by to make sure everything was all right.

“You had a lot of opinions being voiced,” Mrs. McLees said of the meetings. “This was ‘our hospital.’ It had been a long time coming. What you had 45

was the name of the hospital carrying the name of the actual town. There was a lot of allegiance to that particular hospital.”

In February 1973, Buckley sent a memo to City Manager Curling outlining the timetable for the 106-bed hospital. The authority had just won approval from the agency administering the Hill-Burton money and was ready to advertise for construction bids.

One month later, on March 22, 1973, the hospital authority accepted the bid from Leon H. Perlin and Company of Newport News to build the hospital. Construction broke ground in April, one month before the deadline set by the Hill-Burton grant.

On June 18, 1973, Drs. James Crosby and Gad Brosch appeared before the authority to talk about the creation of a Chesapeake Medical Society to serve as a nucleus for bringing new physicians to the city. Brosch, an obstetrician, urged the authority to add a maternity ward to the plans, pointing out that it is through giving birth that most young couples have their first experience with a hospital and usually establish ties with that facility. His words echoed what the administrator already knew, but was unable to do anything about. The state was not going to allow Chesapeake General to build maternity beds. That fight would come another day.

The doctors were raising an issue that many in the city had feared would be the Achilles Heel of the new hospital. If you build it, will the doctors come?

Already, Buckley had surveyed area physicians to see if they would be interested in moving or expanding their practices. The results were that 67 doctors said they were interested, with 40 of them projecting hospital admissions greater than 240 a week.

Dr. Bernard Miller was one of those doctors. Miller had practiced internal medicine in Norfolk since 1960, when he’d moved into the Medical Tower next to Norfolk General. He saw patients at Leigh Memorial and often referred patients from Chesapeake. At the time, he said, “Chesapeake was a medical backwater.” Still, Miller was open to a change when he was contacted by Buckley about possibly moving his office. By the early 1970s, he had run out of room in his offices. The demands of the new medical school were beginning to take their toll. All of it combined to “make me interested to move to Chesapeake.” He would become the first president of the medical staff. “It didn’t take long before the notion took off that this was a good place to practice,” Miller said in a recent interview. “It was virgin territory for patients. With a small hospital, there was a feeling you had some say in what was going on.”

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A Hospital That Can Stand on Its Own Two Feet

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n July 1973, in a ceremony attended by city officials and members of the authority, the first of 584 pilings were pounded into the hospital site. Donna McLees, Buckley’s assistant, sat in her chair observing the festivities and listening to the words of the speakers. She looked up at what seemed to be a figure moving along the trees that lined the construction site. It was Dr. Jennings. He was late to the ceremony. It had been an unusually rainy summer so far, and as he walked across the field, his feet sank deep into the mud.

McLees smiled to herself. Somehow, on this afternoon, with its breezy wind and threatening sky, everything seemed just right.

As it stood at the time, the hospital was planned at 106 beds, 100 of them reserved as medical or surgical beds and six for the ICU. The beds were all private; each room was estimated at 190 square feet including the bathroom. The Emergency Room was slated to have five treatment areas. The At the conclusion of the groundbreaking cerebuilding itself was shaped monies, Donald Buckley (left), hospital adminisas an “H” with east and trator, and Dr. W. Stanley Jennings Jr., chairwest wings connected by man of the hospital authority, put the trailer to the elevator shafts. The immediate use, with a conference.

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entire fourth floor as well as a portion of the third floor would be shelled, only.

What this meant was that these areas would have walls and a roof but would be left unfinished until such a time as they were needed for expansion.

Such a time was now.

On Oct. 30, 1973, Buckley, appearing before the city council, explained that the authority had approached the state health department for permission to complete the west wing of the third floor. The addition would add 34 beds, bringing the hospital’s total to 140 on opening day. Buckley said he hoped to hear from state officials by the end of the year. “The hospital authority has made a decision to proceed in trying to obtain approval for these beds for several reasons,” he told the council. “We all know the tremendous rate at which the city of Chesapeake is growing, both residentially and industrially. We also realize that many of the people presently employed in our city and adjacent cities reside in contiguous North Carolina counties and they, too, will be utilizing our hospital.”

Buckley warned that obtaining a certificate of need for the area hospitals was becoming more difficult because of the competition. “This is not to say that hospitals are bed hungry, but it is a very basic fact in hospital economics that the range of services which a hospital can provide is directly dependent on the number of beds which a hospital has,” he said. “That is why it is so important that Chesapeake General Hospital not be stymied in growth and end up as a 100-bed hospital and, as a result, have people begin to feel it is incapable of providing the degree of medical and hospital care which I am sure you and I desire for it to deliver. If we are to open 140 beds and within a short time expand, this previously described image will never exist. Obviously, we will not be a medical center at which organ transplants and highly sophisticated medical center procedures are performed, but we will be an area hospital which can certainly stand on its own two feet.”

One month later, state health officials gave Buckley and the authority permission to add 35 beds, one more than they requested, bringing the total to 141.

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All These Disagreements Made Us Have a Great Hospital

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y January 1974, the construction was behind schedule due to heavy rain.

Already the due date for the hospital had slipped to 1975. There were problems on the site. The Clerk of the Works, the authority’s representative on the site, was having trouble with a handful of contractors. One of the contractors chased him across the site with a tree limb. He quit the next day.

That was when Carl Hayes, retired director of safety for the military, was hired. Hayes, a man fierce of personality, soon became known for his white hard hat with his name written across it in large letters. “They had to know who I was and what I did,” he said in a recent interview. “I didn’t make any bones about it. They all knew I was in charge of the construction and that it had to be done right.” Each morning, Hayes arrived at the site and went into his trailer, positioned adjacent to Buckley’s. Usually, Buckley was already there.

Hayes would meet with him every morning before walking to the site and inspecting the work. He was there 14 hours a day, climbing ladders and taking

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photographs. At the end of the day, he’d complete a daily report and give it to Buckley. “I was there everyday and they knew I was there,” Hayes said. “The pressure was to get it finished so that it could be used. I knew what everyone was planning to do. My commitment was to get it finished properly and then turn it over to the authority.”

Part of Hayes’ job was to attend the authority meetings, which were growing in acrimony as time went on and issues cropped up about the construction.

Or even when choices had to be made regarding furniture, the paint color of walls or even the color of the volunteer’s uniforms. “We’d get to arguing about the type of furnishings at the hospital,” recalled Walter Broadnax, a member of the authority. “We didn’t make any hasty decisions, not with a board like that.”

Vista Cotten remembered one meeting when a verbal fight erupted and two of the members did not speak for three weeks. There was a division, she said, between the younger and older members. Much of the infighting, she said, was due to their inexperience. No one had done this before. “We all admitted in the end we had made mistakes, but the crucial thing is we learned from them,” she said. “I think all of us could have killed each other at one time.” Cotten recalled a meeting where one member threatened to “punch the lights out” of a colleague if he said another word. She went under the table to the other side of the room. “It was the little things,” she said in an interview.

“The big issues were taken care of. All these disagreements made us have a great hospital.”

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One Step Closer to Reality

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t times, it seemed as though it would never open. In April 1974, a controversy erupted over the selection of the type of elevator. The general contractor, Perlin, opted for a type of elevator known as Dover. The architects, Waller and Sadler, did not want to use those elevators and said the builder had violated the specifics of the contract. A war of words ensued. The architects said Dover would not be allowed by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, who had to approve all details of the building. The builder contacted the Philadelphia office of the HEW and was told Dover would be fine. The architects would not budge and said the Dover elevator did not meet the building design constraints. They insisted that the builder use Otis, which generally carried a higher pricetag. Neither side would back down and the issue looked like it was headed to court. The builders said they would put in the Otis elevators but To some, there was a would sue the architects in court to pay for general sense of doom, the difference in costs. In the end, a third that someone was trying option, Westinghouse was chosen.

“To this day, whenever I get in an elevator, to sabotage their efforts.

I look at the name to check,” said Buckley.

There were other holdups. During the construction, at various times series of workmen went on strike across the area.

In the fall of 1974, it was the plumbers. A year later, the plasterers, operating engineers and iron workers, all threatened to strike. This coupled with rain, a shortage of white concrete and a dispute over the type of paint to be used in the hospital’s hallways contributed to what would become a year-long delay in the long-awaited opening. In November 1974, Hayes estimated the project was 180 days behind schedule. In January, he told the authority there was no way the hospital would be operational before November 1975. Hayes had met repeatedly with Perlin and said he believed the company was trying hard to finish. “After these meetings, Mr. Hayes stated that he felt an extra effort to expedite the project was being put forth,” stated the minutes of the January 29 authority meeting. “He noted the fact that crews were being doubled.”

Throughout these fits and starts in the construction, a general unease filtered through the members of the hospital authority. Each day brought them one step closer to their reality. But each day seemed to bring another problem.

To some, there was a general sense of doom that someone was trying to sabotage their efforts. Vista Cotten knew whom to blame. She looked no further 51

than the members of the Norfolk medical community. Cotten, an insurance dealer, played golf frequently with local doctors and discussed the new hospital. She says she learned of efforts by a few associated with Norfolk General who were trying to block physicians from practicing in Chesapeake. “You have to remember, we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps,” Cotten said. “We didn’t understand the medical politics of the time. Norfolk was trying to paint us as someone they would absorb down the road. That put us in the position of not attracting the top doctor groups. Everybody was waiting There were on everyone else to make a first move . . . A lot of city veiled threats – council people were being lobbied by Norfolk. Norfolk wanted to capture the market. We all knew this hospital ‘Hey you go to would be the vanguard of making Chesapeake what it is today. We knew we needed a hospital. We just didn’t Chesapeake, have the physicians. There were veiled threats – ‘Hey, you won’t get you go to Chesapeake, you won’t get any referrals.’ We did not want to be dictated to. We knew our city was any referrals.’ going to grow. We had a commodity no one else had.

We had land.”

Was Cotten paranoid? Or, was there an effort to, if not block Chesapeake General, at least make it more difficult to build?

In July 1975, less than six months before the doors would open, Buckley told the authority that he had been in negotiations with Virginia National Bank to loan the authority $530,000 for new equipment and to extend a $500,000 line of credit to the hospital to cover the initial operating expenses.

Two months later, the loan applications were denied. The reasons given were that the authority already had outstanding loans and “there was also some concern addressed as to the assurance of continued support by the city of Chesapeake for the project.” The vague reference was unexplained. To the authority members, it was a slap in the face and they didn’t have to look far or hard for a reason. On the board of VNB, they said, sat members of the Norfolk medical community. They took their business elsewhere, scrambling to Chesapeake banks.

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It Was All Done for That Reason

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he opening of Chesapeake General Hospital was set for January 26, 1976.

Newspapers heralded the day: “Sunday – whatever the weather – will be a dazzling day for Chesapeake; it will mark a dream turning into a reality,” wrote reporter Lloyd Lewis in The Chesapeake Post. “Chesapeake, awaken to a new day. Sunday’s glittering opening will be an event long remembered. With more than good reason.”

Still, there was much to be done. On January 22, four days before the opening and three days before a planned dedication ceremony, Buckley reported yet another problem had come up – this one regarding the color of uniforms for the hospital volunteers. A light blue color had been chosen in September 1975, but members of the hospital auxiliary wanted pink. Buckley wanted blue. He wanted Chesapeake General to be different. During the meeting, he told the authority members that the director of nursing and the director of volunteers both had signed off on the blue. The uniform company already had stocked the selection. The volunteers had been told what to wear. Simply put, it was too late. Jennings suggested the volunteers wear blue tops and pink bottoms. The idea didn’t catch on. In a 5-4 vote, the authority agreed to let Buckley choose the color.

Sunday dawned cold and cloudy, still 400 Chesapeake residents attended the formal dedication of the new hospital, huddling together in chairs as they listened to the speakers laud the work of the city. Each member of the authority was there, so was the Mayor Marion Whitehurst and members of the state delegation. The guest speaker was U.S. Rep. Bob Daniel. Stuart Ogren, executive director of the Virginia Hospital Association, also was there to commend the new facility, which was scheduled to open the next day.

The press coverage was fawning. In the January 26 edition of the Virginian Pilot-Ledger Star, a special pull-out section celebrated the hospital’s opening.

Along with advertisements from doctors, realtors and business owners in Chesapeake, was the message: “Congratulations to the people of Chesapeake – YOU MADE IT HAPPEN!” and, “At last you’re here . . . We’re so proud to have you in our great city at long last! May we take this opportunity to extend congratulations on your new facilities, Chesapeake General Hospital.”

The Chesapeake Post, which had openly supported the effort to secure a hospital, waxed poetic about the big day: “Standing amid a grove of trees off Battlefield Boulevard just north of Great Bridge, the new Chesapeake General Hospital appears out of place. It would almost seem it sprung up like a magic 53

mushroom amid the splendor of the forest. But Chesapeake citizens who passed by the site daily and contributed their time and money, know otherwise.”

Walter Broadnax was among those attending the ceremony. He filled with pride, as the dignitaries, one by one, praised the hospital authority. “I had a little something to do with the caring of patients in that hospital,” he thought as he looked at the shining, new building. “It was all done for that reason.”

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Any Doctor to the ER! Stat!

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he hospital wasn’t ready for business that afternoon; it wasn’t scheduled to open until the next morning. Following the dedication, however, groups of visitors took tours of the new facility.

That day, the visitors taking the tour would have seen that the first floor housed administrative offices, admissions, the business office, a small cafeteria, a gift shop and a tiny lobby. Also on the first floor was the 24-hour emergency room, along with operating suites, pathology labs, physical therapy rooms and the radiology department. The second floor held the critical care unit, medicalsurgical patient units and patient lounges. On the third floor were more patient beds and lounges, though these beds were among those not quite ready by opening day.

The third floor was not to open until early spring, but Buckley assured the citizens the hospital would offer all its normal services with a limited number of available beds.

Kathie Edmonds, a nurse in the emergency room, was at the hospital when a tour was walking through the new ER. Suddenly, a man attending the ceremony, stumbled against the door, his hand clutching his chest. He fell to the floor. Edmonds first reaction was to ask, “Is this a joke?” It wasn’t. Seconds later, she broadcast a message across the hospital. “We had to find a doctor in the hospital,” she said in an interview. “ ‘Any doctor to the ER. Stat!’ ” Crosby, one of the original members of the medical society, ran into the ER. The man was stabilized and rushed by ambulance into Norfolk.

The following morning, Chesapeake General Hospital opened its doors.

This time for real.

Only 72 of the 141 beds were ready for patient use when the hospital opened. The remainder were to be phased in by the spring.

On Monday, January 26, there were 27 admissions. On Wednesday, doctors treated 56 patients in the ER. All but one bed in the critical care unit was used. All available beds on the floor were filled.

In a meeting with the hospital authority, Buckley reported that an additional 17 beds would be opened February 12, and that a dozen of those would be dedicated to surgical cases. In the first three and one-half days of operation, the hospital had 105 patients in radiology and 168 procedures performed in the X-ray department. In the first week, 85 percent of the beds were filled.

Two weeks after the hospital opened, Buckley told the authority he had passed the decision regarding the color of uniforms over to the auxiliary. The 55

Auxiliary chose pink.

By March 18, 107 beds were available for use by the hospital and the occupancy rate to date averaged 91 percent. The average hospital stay was eight days. The occupancy statistics, Buckley contended, proved the need and receptiveness of the hospital in Chesapeake.

In fact, it wasn’t until April, during the Easter holiday weekend, that the new hospital’s occupancy rate dropped to below 90 percent for the first time since the facility opened. At this time 124 beds were available. Buckley had hoped to open an additional 17 With occupancy rates holding beds by March 28, but, due to a lack of nursing personnel, this at 90 percent, the Chesapeake goal seemed doubtful. It was Hospital Authority began looking decided that the final 17-bed section would open when it was to expand, this time asking the determined there was a need and state for permission to increase when a nursing staff could be recruited to man it. the number of beds from 141 It wouldn’t take long. With to 210, and to triple its support occupancy rates holding at 90 perservice space. The opposition was cent, the Chesapeake Hospital Authority began looking to immediate and vocal. expand, this time asking the state for permission to increase the number of beds from 141 to 210, and to triple its support service space. The opposition was immediate and vocal. Portsmouth Vice Mayor Robert Wentz spoke out against the approval of more beds, decrying the move as an attempt by the medical community to follow the “white flight” from the inner cities into the suburbs. Allowing Chesapeake to expand would rob the urban hospitals such as Maryview and Portsmouth General of needed health care dollars.

An editorial in The Virginian-Pilot questioned Wentz’ claims, arguing that the growth in Chesapeake was not the result of such a flight. “The point is an interesting one, although it probably is based on an erroneous assumption,” the editorial stated. “A population gain such as Chesapeake’s mainly reflects normal growth and not a ‘flight’ from anything. Further, what is wrong with developing health care close to people? There’s no question that land-rich, suburban Chesapeake is attracting new people at a fast pace. For a community covering some 300-squre miles and containing some 100,000 people it might be argued, Chesapeake was quite late in getting a hospital within its boundaries in the first place. If the added beds would glut the Tidewater hospital bed market then the

expansion ought to be opposed. But to frustrate Chesapeake’s plan because more doctors may move to areas where the people are is no cure for our regional or our medical problems.”

The controversy quickly ended in July 1977 when the state informed members of the Chesapeake Hospital Authority that it had approved the certificate of need for the added beds and services. In August 1978, construction began on the first portion of a three-phase expansion that would boost the number of beds to 210 and establish a critical care unit , housing eight intensive care beds and six cardiac care beds. “The growth of the hospital benefits the citizen through a totally improved health care system, serving patients in nursing homes and as outpatients,” Buckley told reporters at the time. He went on to say that the new hospital continued to attract more physicians to the area. In 1972, only 18 physicians had offices in Chesapeake. By 1979, more than 70 did.

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ithin a few days, however, the giant health care provider, Blue Cross of Virginia, filed suit to block the expansion, fearing it would cause a spike in health care claims. Appearing before the authority, attorney Robert Winters urged the members to allow him to file papers immediately challenging the Blue Cross suit. The lawsuit was heard by a judge outside of Richmond before it was dismissed. The ruling strengthened the power of the state’s certificate of need laws by suggesting that Blue Cross acted outside of the law and, therefore, its court suit had no standing.

It was not the last fight Chesapeake General would face. In 1981, even as the hospital readied to open its new renovations, the authority set its sights on the single aspect of health care that it, so far, had been blocked from pursuing: obstetrics – the very specialty that physicians had sought before the hospital was built.

On October 22, 1981, the hospital authority voted to pursue the addition of a 25-bed maternity ward. The ward would include 25 post-partum beds, and five labor and delivery rooms, along with two surgical suites for caesarian sections. The nursery would hold 30 bassinets. The cost of construction was estimated at $3.8 million. It would take three years to build – if the state granted the approval. Chesapeake General learned quickly what a big “If ” that was.

Within a month of the state application, Leigh Memorial, too, indicated it would submit a bid to add obstetrical services. Both hospitals argued that growth in the area necessitated an increased, allotment of maternity beds. At a hearing before state and regional health officials, Judi Leader of Chesapeake told the panel her daughter had been born in the front seat of her car, sitting outside DePaul Hospital on Granby Street. A resident of Chesapeake, she couldn’t make it to the hospital in time. “If we had had these services at Chesapeake General, I know I would have had my baby in a hospital,” Leader said.

The Chesapeake General bid for OB seemed to be on its way. The project won early and unanimous approval by the review committee of the state’s health department. The issue was passed onto the actual council in charge of making recommendations for certificates of need. In a 7-2 vote on June 15, 1982, the council voted to approve Chesapeake General’s request. The recommendation had only to go before Dr. James B. Kenley, the state health commissioner, who would take final action on July 9, 1982. Buckley warned residents not to count on the approval. “There is a sentiment in this area that

Chesapeake is entitled only to the leftovers,” Buckley said in the June 2, 1982 edition of The Chesapeake Post. “We saw it when we were trying to open the hospital and we saw it more recently when we were working to get our certificate of need for expansion. Sentiment goes we should sit back and wait to see what Norfolk wants to do, and if anything is left over, we get it on the second round.”

On July 9, Kenley turned down the applications from both Chesapeake General and Leigh Memorial. Instead, he approved renovation of the birthing unit at Norfolk General, reversing the recommendations of the advisory panel.

Kenley stated that adding new obstetrics units would “have a negative impact” on the birth centers already in operation without providing a “demonstrative improvement” in either the quality or accessibility of services.

It was not the first time the authority had been turned down by the state.

It was not the first time they decided to fight. Quickly, they filed an appeal with Kenley’s office, calling on then-Gov. Charles Robb to help. In an interview with local re- “What (Kenley) is porters, Buckley said he was “disappointed and saying to the people puzzled.” Each year, he said, about 2,000 women living in Chesapeake give birth and they have to of Chesapeake is that leave their city to do so. “What (Kenley) is saying we don’t recognize to the people of Chesapeake is that we don’t recognize you as having a need for total health care,” you as having a need Buckley said. “Again, Chesapeake is being igfor total health care.” nored and is not being recognized as a city. The – DONALD BUCKLEY people here should be concerned about this.”

An editorial writer for The Chesapeake Post described the state’s decision as an example of “Lunar Logic.” He wrote on July 14, “Don Buckley suggests that politics could have had something to do with the decision and that could be the case. The only other factor we can think of that might have caused this week’s sterling show of thought would be last week’s lunar eclipse. Apparently, the moon was not the only thing last week that didn’t see the light.”

The appeal, filed the Monday after the Friday decision, would be reviewed by the health department. It would wind its way through hearings in front of an independent authority before landing in circuit court.

The battle lines were drawn. But the hospital faced other challenges, too.

Complicating matters was a downturn in health care dollars and overall changes in the industry as a whole. Chesapeake General, while pushing to expand, faced a bleak financial picture. On October 26, 1982, Buckley recom-

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59

The Pack Follows the Lead Horse

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mended that a cost of living increase slated for employees be erased for the year.

He also recommended that the authority close one nursing unit starting November 19 because of the anticipated low census during the holiday season.

In addition, all staff members would be asked to voluntarily forego their hours by eight to 16 hours per pay period. Of the 648 full-time employees, 430 elected to reduce their hours, saving the hospital “Everybody knew that in about 7 percent in salary payments.

“Everybody pulled together and did it,” said order to survive we had Pat Morhusen, who was head of the medical staff office. “Everybody knew that in order to make drastic cuts.” to survive we had to make drastic cuts.”

– PAT MORHUSEN Throughout this period, Buckley insisted that Chesapeake General look forward. Health care was changing.

Chesapeake General had to change, too. Morhusen, who began as an assistant to Buckley, gradually took on the role as head of the medical staff department, overseeing the hospital’s doctors. In an interview, Morhusen said the early 1980s marked massive changes in the industry, especially when it came to billing for services. Universal coding was becoming a norm, meaning that most physicians had to come up to speed on what insurance carriers were paying.

“Physicians weren’t used to being scrutinized,” said Morhusen. “It was the breaking point for managed care. Don, at this point, was such an advocate for physicians. He kept them on the cutting edge of what was happening in the industry. He kept himself current. He had foresight. He knew what was coming in the future. At the same time, he was trying to get market share. He was strategically buying settings. ‘Look, I’m bringing the patients here, getting that market share and then feeding the patients back to the specialists.’ If the doctors weren’t bringing in the market share, we had to.”

As part of that philosophy, Buckley, in that same year, pushed for the hospital to look into purchasing two primary care centers in an attempt to boost its patient base. The centers were located in Deep Creek and Kempsville. The decision to move into these areas marked the first time the hospital looked to establish its network elsewhere, hoping to draw in more patients with its net.

The effort would eventually take Chesapeake General into the Outer Banks region as well. “The whole idea was to make a presence in the market where Virginia Beach was and take them and funnel them into Chesapeake,” Morhusen said. “We wanted to go there and show them Chesapeake is a good hospital. That would feed our specialists.”

Later that year, Morhusen, angered by the refusal of the state to grant a certificate of need for a maternity ward, suggested the hospital place a giant stork

in front of the building, counting down the months until it was opened.

Anything to put pressure on the state.

On July 7, 1983, in an attempt to avoid a court battle, Chesapeake General struck a deal with state officials regarding obstetrics services. The hospital had asked for permission to build 25 beds and 30 bassinets, bringing its overall bed total to 235 beds. As a result of the compromise, the hospital instead would maintain its 210-bed level by adding only 20 OB beds and closing eight of the medical/surgical beds. It was a victory. Although it wouldn’t open for three more years, the maternity ward would grow to the busiest in the region, delivering its 50,000th baby in 2004.

The year 1982 marked another critical shift in the role of Chesapeake General. On May 15, the hospital hosted its first “Wellness Day,” a daylong fair designed to teach the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. The fair, held on May 15 of that year, represented the hospital’s push into the area of wellness, which was largely unheard of at the time. This push resulted in the development of lifestyle centers where residents from Chesapeake could take aerobics classes and pick up information on how to stay healthy.

In 1983, after working in hospitals on the Eastern Shore, in rural North Carolina and, most recently, DePaul Hospital in Norfolk, Dr. Francis Watson strode through the doors of the newly renovated emergency room at Chesapeake General, eager to join a group of four doctors who together would man the 24-hour operation. It was a chance to start a business from the ground floor, to This push resulted in the build a practice as the still-young hospital development of lifestyle built its reputation. There were 10 beds in the emergency department at the time. The centers where residents doctors split the days into two, 12-hour from Chesapeake could shifts. A room was set aside with a bed in it for the doctors to take a break during a lull in take aerobics classes and the overnight traffic. pick up information on In Watson’s first year, the ER saw more than 24,000 patients. “It was clear Ches- how to stay healthy. apeake was taking off,” Watson said. “From a medical business standpoint, it was a great location. Your patients were good.

You were in a community. You were taking care of families.”

It would not take long for the emergency room to grow into the busiest in South Hampton Roads. The call room where doctors could catch a quick nap was closed.

The stories from the ER grew as well. There was the night the ER doctor

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on duty suffered a stroke in the middle of the shift. Nurses had to scramble to find another doctor to treat him. There was the day a giant Coast Guard helicopter landed on the pad outside while transporting a patient. The wind force from the propeller blew out the windows of all the cars parked nearby.

Within a year or two of arriving at Chesapeake General, Watson was named medical director for the city’s rescue squads. At the time, the squad had one trained cardiac technician. Firemen who were given basic life support training were called on to respond to emergencies. In one week alone, these firemen brought in two dead patients to the ER. They didn’t know they were dead, Watson said. Clearly, the training was not enough. Watson took the issue to the city council and won approval for the city to hire a staff of cardiac technicians.

“We all have just kind of grown,” Watson said.

Chesapeake General was making its mark. By this time, Buckley had earned a reputation as a strong-willed administrator, a man who was autocratic at times. At the weekly administrative meetings, Buckley would preside in the conference room for three hours as lines of department heads and other employees would line up to make their reports. “When people came out, they’d be totally drained,” Morhusen said. “He lived There was the day a and breathed that hospital early on. He made you work harder because you couldn’t keep up giant Coast Guard with him. They say the pack follows the lead helicopter landed on horse. He set the example and the employees lived by it. Either you picked up and stayed the pad outside while with him or you were out.” transporting a patient.

Every Saturday and Sunday, Buckley walked through the halls of the hospital, as if he were a The wind force from doctor making rounds. Often, he brought the propeller blew out cookies to the nurses on weekend duty. It was the windows of all the important to have a presence, he would say.

At times, Buckley’s style of leadership cars parked nearby. sparked controversy. To make matters worse, Chesapeake was no longer a sleepy, rural town.

The city attracted the attention of local newspaper reporters who began scrutinizing the moves of the public officials. When the malfeasance of a former city development director earned one of the local reporters a Pulitzer Prize, Chesapeake emerged as a favorite topic for journalists. Much of their attention focused on Buckley, who had made his distaste for press coverage well known.

Part of the problem stemmed from the nature of the hospital. Buckley wanted to run it like a business, but it had a public foundation. Its authority members

were appointed by a city council filled with politicians looking for stepping stones to other careers. “I used to beg Don, and Don to his credit almost to a fault, would not compromise in any way,” said Linwood Nelms, a member of the authority during the 1980s. “He would say, ‘I’m running a hospital. I’m not running a community institution.’ He was working like 15 hours a day. He didn’t have Part of the problem time to go to the barbecues and the fish fries. stemmed from the nature He would say, ‘I don’t want to do that.’ I’d say, ‘When you live in Rome, you have to of the hospital. Buckley live with the Romans.’” wanted to run it like a Buckley’s style angered at least one member of the authority, Dr. James Crosby, business, but it had a a general practitioner. Crosby, perhaps worpublic foundation. ried by what seemed to be acrimony between the hospital authority and the Chesapeake City Council, recommended that the two bodies meet every six months on a business and social basis for an exchange of information. The recommendation failed by a vote of 8-2. Crosby did not give up. In August, the authority appointed an ad hoc committee to study Crosby’s 19 recommendations for changes to the authority. Included in his plans were to have the contracts of all members of the administration made available to the authority members. This was defeated because, according to the authority’s bylaws, only the administrator has a contract with the authority. Crosby also wanted to have all of the meetings recorded on cassette tapes via three microphones. The secretary of the authority then would compare both the tapes with the written minutes for omissions. This was defeated in a 3-2 vote. Finally, Crosby suggested a 5 percent reduction in all of the hospital’s administrative and supervisory salaries in view of the reduction of hospital staff and decreased bed utilization.

This, too, was defeated in a 3 to 2 vote.

It was about this time that Dr. Juan Montero, a general surgeon, dropped by the office with a present for Buckley. It was a plaque with words written in Latin scrawled across it. Buckley looked at it but did not know what the words meant. Leaning in, Montero whispered, “Don’t Let Them Get You Down.”

The plaque hung in Buckley’s office. No one ever knew.

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The Changing Face of Healthcare

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y 1985, Chesapeake General had continued to grow. In January of that year, Buckley announced the staff was reviewing a possible affiliation with the Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters to coordinate pediatrics. In addition, plans were under way for a medical office building, proposed as a three-story office tower with 28,000 square feet of space.

As part of the changing face of healthcare, many hospitals at the time were forming networks to share information and purchasing power. Buckley reported on a proposal from SunHealth Inc., inviting Chesapeake General to join.

“Don Buckley . . . is a Buckley advised the authority that gentleman in every respect, a health experts predicted by 1990 between 1,000 and 1,500 hospitals leader in the community and out of 5,000 would close. The ones a tremendous asset to our city.” who will survive may be the ones who link with systems or networks.

– REAR ADM. JOSEPH L. YON Following his recommendation, the authority unanimously approved the alignment.

It was also during this time that Chesapeake General was accused of racial discrimination in its hiring practices. In early 1985, Buckley presented the authority with a letter from Willie Cooper, president of Chesapeake Forward, a citywide organization with 900 members, requesting information on the racial composition of the hospital’s work force. Buckley told authority members that he and the director of personnel had previously met with Cooper for 90 minutes. The authority members agreed to give Cooper the information he wanted but to make sure he was billed for the cost of the copying.

On April 30, 1985, Cooper appeared at the authority meeting. During his 10-minute presentation he accused the hospital of having “an atmosphere of secrecy in the management of the hospital and a lack of black employment.”

Tension filled the board room. A reporter from The Virginian-Pilot newspaper was there. The next morning a headline on the front page blasted the hospital for alleged racial discrimination. In response to Cooper’s allegations, the authority offered the following to ensure equal hiring practices: Advertisements appearing in newspapers for recruitment of hospital employees would also run in the Journal and Guide, a minority owned publication in Norfolk; recruitment efforts would continue at Norfolk State and Hampton universities; the hospital would continue to post job openings and attempt to make the descrip64

tion of the job as understandable as possible; personnel would furnish to Chesapeake Forward the agreed-upon report on a monthly basis; the authority would engage a consultant to review its employment practices to determine if there was any validity to the allegations of discrimination contained in the report presented by Chesapeake Forward, and allegations other than those pertaining to employment discrimination would be referred to legal counsel to determine the legality of the authority’s actions.

The following spring, on May 21, 1986, John Davis, a Washington, D.C. attorney, presented his report on the Chesapeake Forward allegations. “The overall EEO profile of the hospital is good,” he said in his report, stating that none of the reports he studied indicated discriminatory policies or practices.

Later that year, Buckley was named Citizen of the Year in Chesapeake. In a letter nominating Buckley for the honor, Rear Adm. Joseph L. Yon, who had served as chairman of the authority, wrote that Buckley was responsible for the growth that had led Chesapeake General to the forefront of health care in Hampton Roads. “Don Buckley in every way represents the best of citizenship,” Yon wrote. “I have known him for 15 years and as chairman of the Chesapeake Hospital Authority for six years, worked very closely with him. He is a gentleman in every respect, a leader in the community and a tremendous asset to our city.”

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n the spring of 1992, Durwood Curling, former city manager for the city of Chesapeake, sat in his office at the Southeastern Public Service Authority in the Koger Center off Kempsville Road. He was scheduled to meet with executives from Sentara to discuss a proposed “affiliation” with Chesapeake General Hospital. Curling had served as a member of the Sentara board for years. He knew the men wanted to pick his brain on how they could sell the idea.

You can’t, Curling would tell them at the end of their 20-minute presentation. There’s no way you can sell it. “You’re going to create a firestorm,” he said.

One week later, Curling sat in the living room of his Great Bridge home.

It was about 8 p.m. when he heard the first car pull up across the street.

Minutes later, he heard a second. And then a third.

Uh-oh, he thought. It’s out.

The cars across the street were filled with dozens of women, the very ones who had canvassed the 353-square-mile city in 1973 to raise money to pay for a hospital. These women had gotten wind of the proposed merger with Sentara Health Systems and were meeting at a home across the street to make their plans. They weren’t about to let their hospital be gobbled by the monster to the north.

The newspaper confirmed the rumors the next day. “Chesapeake General talks about Sentara affiliation,” screamed the headline in The Virginian-Pilot.

The story reported that, in a 7-2 vote, the authority agreed to “enter into negotiations for a future affiliation with Sentara.” In the story, Buckley downplayed the talk as premature. “For two or three years, we have been talking about our future, recognizing that health care is changing drastically,” Buckley was quoted as saying. “The question was: Could we be a stand-alone hospital or do we need to make an affiliation?”

That issue and how it would be decided would mark Chesapeake General’s future. With the retrenchment in health care and a new focus on cutting costs by limiting payments to caregivers, could a single hospital make it on its own?

Informal discussions between Chesapeake General and Sentara had been ongoing for years, though they had become more regular in the four months preceding the announcement. Glenn Mitchell, then-president of Sentara, also downplayed use of the word merger. An affiliation could mean as little as sharing purchasing services. Mitchell also told reporters that, given the origin of Chesapeake General and its strong ties to the community, every effort would be made to maintain its autonomy. Buckley, too, tried to smooth over the con-

troversy, detailing the reasons for such an affiliation in numerous articles in the local newspapers. His words fell on deaf ears, however, as rumors circulated that the administrator had been offered a lucrative job within Sentara.

Word of the merger talks sparked widespread concern from health officials throughout the region. In an interview with reporters from The Chesapeake Post, Douglas Johnson, president and CEO of Tidewater Health Care, which included Virginia Beach General Hospital and Portsmouth General Hospital, said he was “floored” by the news. He expressed dismay that Sentara would gobble up another portion of the local health care market and said Chesapeake would be trading its “freedom for money.” Johnson also warned that such a merger would be unhealthy for the local area and could lead to a rise in health care costs.

Authority members at the time tried to defend the merger talks as the logical next step for a young hospital that had already undergone several key expansions. “What we’re saying to the citizens is: “We’re solvent. We’re solid.

We’re on good ground now,” said authority member Donald Taylor in The Virginian-Pilot. “But we have to look at this in order to maintain our goodness, expand our service area and keep up with the technology. Chesapeake General will remain identifiable as Chesapeake He expressed dismay that General. We haven’t sold it out.”

The words did little to stem the controSentara would gobble up versy. Before long, the same residents who held bake sales and attended dance contests another portion of the in the 1970s to raise money for Chesapeake local health care market General formed a new campaign, “Friends of Chesapeake General,” determined to defeat and said Chesapeake Buckley and the authority’s plan. At the would be trading its helm was former authority member Vista Cotten. “The green eyes of envy have been “freedom for money.” on Chesapeake General for a long time,” Cotten said of Sentara’s grab. “A hard-core group of people worked to establish this hospital and they are not going to let it be sold down the tube because it seems like the thing to do.”

In interviews with the local media, Buckley said he has tried “to counter claims that Sentara and Norfolk General were, in fact, enemies.” He said that Mitchell, Sentara’s president, who was administrator of Norfolk General during the 1970s, helped Chesapeake General get off the ground by ordering his department heads to provide the fledgling hospital with whatever advice and help it needed. As an example, Norfolk General allowed Buckley access into its

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Friends of Chesapeake General

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radiology services and central supply offices. “Why would he have done this if he was opposing us?” Buckley asked.

Despite the words and a public relations campaign to stem the furor, the possible deal with Sentara was dead. There was no going back.

The distrust of Norfolk was greater than the ill-will brought on by the politics of medicine. It stemmed back to the days of the merger when South Norfolk and Norfolk County grasped onto each other to try to stem the tide of annexations that had already siphoned off land and population. For 30 years, the city had tried to get out from the shadow of its larger and more powerful neighbors. It had stubbornly insisted on standing alone. It wasn’t going to stop now.

“We knew it was going to be a firestorm,” said Linwood Nelms, a member of the authority at the time. “That’s why we tried to do it as secretively as we could. You had to or else you couldn’t have done it. The votes were there for investigating whether or not we could get closer. We started to feel the heat and the votes started dropping off. As it became public knowledge we had to slam the door.”

Nelms said he received hundreds of phone calls in the weeks that followed the publicity, the overwhelming majority of them negative, accusing him of selling out. “People who have been my friends for 20 years are still mad at me.

They never understood and I’m not so sure they do today. But if you take a particular oath and the oath says basically you’re going to provide the best health care in Chesapeake, you have to listen to the best information provided you.

Would I say I wanted a second-rate facility or would I say I would rather lose the brand, the name, but have the best health care available?”

For the friends of Chesapeake Hospital, the answer is simple. “As long as I am breathing, I will fight this to my dying day,” Cotten said.

Six years later, in 1998, Sentara Health System announced it would merge with Virginia Beach General Hospital, forever changing the Hampton Roads medical landscape and solidifying Sentara as the monopoly network. In September 2005, Sentara announced it would affiliate with Obici as well.

The music had stopped and Chesapeake stood alone.

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He’s the Reason It Has Succeeded

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n April 28, 1998, on a sunny and warm afternoon, hundreds of patients, doctors and dignitaries gathered on a brick patio outside of Chesapeake General. Women wearing pastel-colored dresses and men in their coats and ties walked under white arches and crowded into rows of chairs as the wind whipped through the small shrubs and trees that lined the hospital’s brick walls.

The purpose of the ceremony was to dedicate the hospital’s three-year-old cancer treatment center for Sidney M. Oman, the popular former mayor of Chesapeake and a survivor of advanced prostate cancer. Oman, a large man with shocking white hair and a bright red rose on his lapel, sat quietly to the side as speaker after speaker took the podium to praise his dedication to Chesapeake and the hospital. Six years had passed since the day in Dr. Bernie Miller’s office when Oman learned he was sick. He underwent surgery and for seven weeks, he drove every day to DePaul Hospital in Norfolk for radiation treatments, because Chesapeake did not offer the service.

He decided that needed to change. Working with his doctor, Dr. Matthew Sinesi, Oman helped push through the state bureaucracy to secure approval for the hospital to open its own cancer treatment center. It took three years. The center, predicted to serve 20 patients a day when it opened in 1995, served more than 60 three years later. “Sid pushed hard; he knew there was a tremendous need for it,” Sinesi said during the dedication ceremony. “This is a very special place, now appropriately named for a very special man. Thanks, Sid.” Minutes later, Oman, a member of the hospital authority in the 1960s, tearfully thanked the doctors and the hospital, pausing several times to clear the emotions from his throat. He walked to the front of the hospital and pulled a rope to unveil the large black words: Sidney M. Oman Cancer Treatment Center. “The citizens of Chesapeake are fortunate to have a hospital with such a high level of dedication,” he said. “You are the finest people in the world. I thank you for the honor.”

Oman’s words signaled what many were feeling that April afternoon. This ceremony, while lauding Oman for his work as mayor and for his work as a member of the authority, was about something much more. Only a few weeks had passed since word of the merger between Norfolk General and Virginia Beach General hospitals rocked the health community.

Chesapeake would have to go it alone. They were determined to do it well.

“This center stands as a testament to the strength of the soul of Chesapeake,” said Mayor William E. Ward, during the ceremony. “We must main69

tain our presence in the community and support Chesapeake General so it can withstand the pressures from the outside.”

In the years that followed, Chesapeake General withstood the pressure.

Despite dire warnings that a single institution could not succeed in an ever-changing market, the hospital continued to grow and expand. In 2002, the hospital entered a partnership with the University Health Systems of Eastern Carolina to open a 19-bed hospital on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. In 2004, a unit dedicated solely to the treatment of women opened on the fourth floor of the hospital. That same year, the hospital opened the W. Stanley Jennings Outpatient Center in a freestanding building in a corner of the medical complex.

The changes reflected the hospital’s attempt to stay current in the tumultuous world of medicine. But the biggest shift was yet to come.

In late 2004, about 32 years after he first walked the muddy site off Battlefield Boulevard, Buckley announced it was time to step down. He left behind a hospital that had grown beyond the fledgling 141-bed facility trying to eek out its own share of the market into a 310-bed acute care community hospital system employing more than 2,430 people and a medical staff of 500 physicians representing three dozen specialties.

“We had moved from a country hospital to a real hospital,” Buckley said in an interview. “It’s amazing how a facility changes an attitude. Every time we added a new service – OB, cancer center – we told the public we’re for real; we’re here for the long run.”

Word of Buckley’s impending retirement swept through the Chesapeake medical community, a community that had not known another CEO. A search committee was formed to sift through hundreds of applications. Chesapeake General was a unique hospital. Committee members knew they wanted an executive that could match it.

Dr. Francis Watson, an ER doctor and president of the medical staff at the time, said the physicians wanted someone they could talk to, not an executive who walls himself into an office. “Buckley always had a good relationship with the physicians; he would listen to them,” Watson said. “The medical staff, especially those doctors who worked at multiple hospitals, liked Chesapeake General the best. Our priority was to preserve that, find someone who can work with the physicians.”

The committee chose Christopher Mosley, a health care executive from Colorado. He took over in January 2005.

That same month, the Virginia General Assembly in Richmond adopted a resolution commending Buckley for “completion of an exemplary career of

service to Chesapeake General Hospital and the Hampton Roads community.”

At a gala two weeks later at the Chesapeake Conference Center, Buckley was honored for his service at the helm of the growing hospital complex. As he stood on the dance floor of the sold-out ballroom, he thanked those who had worked so hard to establish the city’s first hospital.

Sitting together, at a round table against a wall, were Stanley Jennings and Jim Leftwich, two of the original authority members who had helped launch the campaign to land a hospital for the newly formed city. They applauded as Buckley walked off the floor.

“If it comes down to single individuals, he’s the reason Chesapeake General has succeeded,” Leftwich said. “It was his skill and his personality. He’s a little bit aggressive, which is necessary. He also didn’t con you. He has no frills. He is and was impressive.”

“It’s almost miraculous that he has been able to achieve what he has – he has turned a sow’s ear into a silk purse and nobody could have done it as well,” wrote Jennings in a pamphlet honoring Buckley.

“I think Don is Chesapeake General Hospital,” wrote Curling, the former city manager, in the same brochure.

In a 2005 interview, Doug Carson, then chairman of the hospital authority, praised Buckley for the vision to build the hospital. “If there was no hospital here, there would be no health care industry in the area,” Carson said in an interview. “Don Buckley is the figurehead of the hospital.”

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Our Destiny Is in Our Hands

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nergy radiates from Chris Mosley as he walks through the administrative offices on the first floor of Chesapeake General Hospital. He greets people with a smile and a quick handshake. He remembers names with ease.

Mosley, former chief operating officer of St. Anthony’s Hospital in Denver, Colo., took over the reins of Chesapeake General in January 2005.

He said the job attracted him because of three reasons: the community commitment to the hospital, the hospital authority’s record of recruiting and supporting new leadership, and the Christopher Mosley quality of the physicians practicing at the hospital.

“I think the thing that appealed to me was I saw the organization was poised to go in different directions,” Mosley said in an interview. “The platform was there – certainly, it could have been daunting following a legend in the community. I have come here not to follow someone, but to establish my own footprint.”

Mosley said he believes Chesapeake General is in a state “of transition, defining itself and its desired future.” The largest challenge to date is improving the bottom line in an era when one-third of all hospitals lose money. One of his first moves was to commission a consultant to devise a strategic plan mapping out suggestions for the hospital’s future. “We think the future of Chesapeake General is a little different than now, but it will always be a community-based hospital,” Mosley said. He was quick to assert that there are no plans for Chesapeake General to align with Sentara. “I don’t think we need to be preoccupied with who is in our backyard,” Mosley said. “I think we need to be preoccupied and committed to our future. I think organizations that focus on what they do, and do it exceedingly well, will succeed. We have a great foundation, a great location. Our destiny is in our hands in many, many ways.”

Doug Carson, chairman of the hospital authority, agreed. The hospital, he 72

said, is perched on a prime location because of the growth taking place along Highways 168 and 158. He expects Chesapeake General to continue to draw heavily from both of those areas. One of the biggest issues facing the hospital is simply the industry itself. Health care has changed dramatically in recent years and the role of the traditional hospital must change to keep pace. “We’re a community hospital; that’s our focus,” Carson said. “As long as we can sustain ourselves financially, that is what we will do.”

Mosley, the son of a nurse’s aie in Alabama, believes in the community hospital. “In a community hospital, you can really impact change,” he said. You can make things happen. We’re doing things that in most other settings would take longer to do. My intention is to be here for a very long time. For me, this is not a step along the way. I’m not a consultant. I’m a health care administrator. I want to be able to look back 10 to 15 years from now and see what we’ve created together.”

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Georgian Manor, the hospital’s first assisted-living facility for seniors, opens.

Chesapeake General Hospital: A Fact Sheet

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hesapeake General Hospital is a 310-bed acute care community hospital located in Chesapeake, Virginia. It is a public hospital and medical center that is governed by the Chesapeake Hospital Authority, an 11-member board composed of area citizens. The hospital employs 2,430 people. The medical staff is composed of 500 physicians representing three dozen specialties.

1986

The BirthPlace opens at Chesapeake General Hospital. The first baby arrives one hour after its opening.

1984

OBX Center - OBMC

1983

CT scanner is added to radiology services. Urgent Care is implemented.

1981

Hospital begins expansion. Construction begins on a new intensive care unit.

1976

Hospital opens.

KEY DATES: 2004

W. Stanley Jennings Outpatient Center opens, providing diagnostic services including MRI, CT, ultrasound and full-service laboratory offerings.

Women’s unit opens, becoming the first inpatient hospital unit dedicated solely to women’s health.

2002

The Outer Banks Hospital opens as a partnership between Chesapeake General and the University Health Systems of Eastern Carolina. It is a 19-bed facility offering emergency services along with inpatient and outpatient surgeries.

2001

Cedar Manor, an assisted living facility, opens on Cedar Road.

1997

Lifestyle Center in Western Branch opens.

1995

Sidney M. Oman Cancer Treatment Center opens at Chesapeake General Hospital. Named after the former mayor who once served on the hospital authority, the 24-bed center provides a full range of treatment to cancer patients.

1991

Renovation and expansion of the hospital to six floors, including giant glass atrium.

1988

Don Buckley cuts the ribbon at opening day festivities.

The Health Resource Center, housing the Lifestyle Fitness Center and the Women’s Health Center, opens. It is the first wellness center in South Hampton Roads.

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Hospital area, December 1973

Hospital area, November 1976 76