NEVER BEFORE

This Thursday...an event will occur for me that has never happened before. I will start work in a NEW hospital.

Cindy & I moved here in 1976 and I began work at St. Elizabeth Hospital. It had been around since the turn of the century. Across town...was the 'other' hospital...Home Hospital. It too had been around nearly as long as St. Elizabeth.

Both hospitals have undergone renovations over the years...have built on new 'wings'...been revamped...but at their core...there are parts of both hospitals that are over 100 years old.

Just before the turn of the new century, the two hospitals merged and became 'one' family. Both buildings remained open...both kept their original names...just working 'with one another'...instead of 'in competition with one another'.

Five days from now...we will open St. Elizabeth EAST. Old St. Elizabeth has been renamed St. Elizabeth CENTRAL and it will remain open.

Home Hospital will close...the night before EAST opens.

For many people in Lafayette...the excitement of a new hospital will be tempered with the sadness in closing an old one. To them...it will be a sad day. Generations have been born...and died in that hospital. Babies born there have grown up...and had babies there...and those babies have had babies there. Generations who started their lives within those walls...grew old and returned to die within those same walls...their children and grandchildren at their side as they passed to their next journey.

I am excited for a start to new history...with respect to the old.


Dan