Historical Timeline
1966
Love County citizens approve $350,000 bond issue for hospital construction under terms of the federal Hill-Burton Act.
1969
On November 15, the heirs of Frank A. and Lillie Bell Shellenberger Family donate a 10-acre tract to locate the general hospital.
1970
Hospital construction begins on November 16.
1972
Love County Health Center opens January 30 with 20 hospital beds, 10 nursing home beds, and an emergency room. A total of 14 area physicians receive staff privileges, including Dr. Vergil Smith, who had established a medical clinic on Main Street 10 years earlier. Dr. M.D. Looney is named staff president emeritus. Dr. Smith is credited with admitting the first patient, a Ringling woman, six hours before Oklahoma Governor Dewey Bartlett gives the dedication speech to officially open the hospital.
On April 13, the first baby is born at the hospital. After a few years, the hospital closes both its operating room and nursery due to the difficulty of obtaining anesthesiologists’ services. Henceforth, it would concentrate on providing urgent care, skilled nursing, and rehabilitation.
1973
Pink Ladies Auxiliary organizes under Kathryn Frazier, president. In July, Dr. J.T. O’Connor joins Dr. Smith’s medical clinic and becomes affiliated with the hospital.
1974
Love County brothers and oil/cattle industry investors, Claude and Bill Brannan and their wives establish the Brannan Family Trust to benefit the hospital. Under terms of the Trust, the Board of County Commissioners establishes the Love County Health Center Foundation, whose community members will decide how annual earnings from the Trust will be spent. Over the years, the Trust has paid out earnings of more than $1 million to purchase equipment, provide medical education, and support operations of the hospital.
1980-1989
Throughout the decade, medical technology advanced in high-cost leaps. Large companies begin to bridle at fee-for-service medicine and the disproportionate share of medical costs borne by employee benefit plans. Medical cost containment measurements are introduced. Two dozen small town hospitals in Oklahoma close.
The McGehee and Wilkins trusts are established to benefit the hospital.
1989
Dr. Stephen Hutchins moves to Marietta and opens a private clinic and becomes affiliated with the hospital.
1990
Doctors Smith, O’Connor and Hutchins, in a sacrificial effort to keep the community’s hospital open, close their private clinics and join the hospital as salaried staff members. A wing of the hospital is converted to clinic use, with revenues accruing to the institution rather than the physicians. Love County voters do their part by approving a one-cent sales tax. This is the first tax asked of citizens since the initial bond was voted in 1966.
1992
Hospital construction bond is retired and, with it, the obligation to set aside funds for charitable care. Hospital staff requests such funds continue to be allotted anyway. The Board of Control concurs.
1993
Love County Emergency Services asks hospital to take over its operations.
1995
Twice, the Board of Control seeks voters’ approval of a temporary 5-mill property tax to raise $500,000 for construction of a separate clinic building. Both times, the measure receives more than 50% of the vote but less than the necessary 60% super-majority.
The financial squeeze on hospitals everywhere is such that institutions team up to obtain central purchasing of equipment and other cost savings. Love County forms such a buying consortium through the Integris network, including Memorial Hospital in Ardmore.
It achieves Rural Health Center status.
1996
Three years after taking over management of a near-insolvent Love County EMS, emergency care has become an area of excellence. Ambulance licensure has progressed from basic to paramedic life support. Crews are now capable of managing most medical emergencies – an important capability in a far-flung county covering 500 square miles. The hospital sponsors a volunteer Emergency Medical Responder (formerly First Responder) network, comprised of laypersons, firefighters, and law enforcement personnel who can provide emergency care prior to the arrival of an ambulance. EMS debts have been cleared, and the first of three new or almost-new ambulances is acquired.
1997
Memorial Hospital in Ardmore, having been purchased in 1996 by the Mercy Health System of St. Louis, proposes to lease the Love County hospital. The Board of Control concurs and Love County voters agree to cancel the one-cent sales tax so the lease of the public facility can occur. Control passes to Mercy Memorial and the facility takes a new name, Mercy Health/Love County.
Over the next 18 months, Mercy Memorial pours $2 million into the health center – paying off the hospital’s debts, upgrading the facility inside and out, and constructing a new clinic, all at no cost to Love County.
1998
The new 6,000 square foot medical office building opens. But financial turmoil in the hospital industry continues. Mercy Health System withdraws from the lease agreement to concentrate on its larger facilities. Love County Commissioners reactivate the hospital Board of Control and successfully win from voters a renewal of the one-cent sales tax to support hospital operations. The Board of Control re-establishes a management agreement with Mercy Memorial and retains the name, Mercy Health/Love County Hospital and Clinic. Ownership of the hospital and clinic remain with Love County.
1999
Board of Control achieves “critical access” status for hospital, allowing cost-based reimbursement from Medicare. This helps with the bottom line and permits improvements in the quality of care.
2001
Hospital/clinic begins offering rehabilitative services, including physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy. Employees open a food pantry to feed the hungry and food-insecure of Love County.
2002
A Love County health-needs assessment is conducted in cooperation with the Oklahoma Office of Rural Health. Local citizens evaluate the substantial economic impact of the health care sector of Love County’s economy and are polled by telephone on health needs for the community.
2003
Dr. Larry D. Powell moves to Love County and joins the hospital/clinic, answering the need for an additional doctor expressed during the citizens’ assessment in 2002.
2004
Hospital acquires a computerized, color-flow Doppler ultrasound machine. It increases the capacity for studying blood vessels and organs for possible disease.
2005
Hospital opens a one-room chapel off the main lobby.
In May, hospital organizes a Medicare Part D coalition to help senior citizens become informed about the new prescription drug program from Medicare. The coalition now includes the hospital, Love County Health Department, the Retired Seniors Volunteer Program (RSVP) of Big 5 Community Services, and Love County’s only drug store, Marietta Pharmacy. The coalition focuses first on enrolling low-income seniors for the “extra help” subsidy of Medicare Part D that will pay up to 95% of prescription costs when Medicare Part D gets underway in 2006. Then, each fall, during Medicare Part D open enrollment, the coalition offers to take any Medicare participant in the county through the “plan finder” tool on the medicare.gov website so they can select the best prescription drug plan for their prescriptions.
2006
A contractual arrangement with the Chickasaw Nation results in a second EMS ambulance station in Thackerville at the new WinStar Casinos. This arrangement enhances service in the southern end of the county and on I-35, and results in another new ambulance. The hospital will soon contract for first aid services inside the Casino, adding to EMS employment. The hospital contract expands to include first aid services inside Riverwind Casino in Norman, when that center opens in 2007.
Under sponsorship of Sister Carolyn Stoutz of Mercy Memorial in Ardmore, and in cooperation with the Family Shelter of Southern Oklahoma, the hospital acquires a $100,000 Catherine’s Legacy grant to open a victim advocate office in Marietta for the benefit of battered women and their children. It is the first service in Love County devoted to preventing and treating domestic violence and sexual assault. An advisory group of law enforcement, prosecutor, and hospital staff works closely with the new office.
2007
Hospital acquires a CT scanner (computerized tomography). It exceeds the capabilities of conventional x-ray exams for illuminating diseased organs and fractured bones.
Hospital acquires an automated drug dispensing system for patients admitted to the hospital or treated in the emergency room. This adds to patient safety (reducing medication errors) and the tracking and inventory of drugs.
Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Training Center is added to the ambulance bay. The room seats 25-30 and is equipped with audiovisual media and Internet access. In addition to hospital/clinic staff training, the center will accommodate classroom and demonstration courses for the county’s emergency response organizations, including medics, volunteer emergency medical responders (formerly first responders), search and rescue, and volunteer fire fighters. The first paramedic training course is offered.
2008
Hospital acquires a bone density scanner. It increases the ability to screen patients for osteoporosis affecting vertebrae and hip joints.
The Rural Health Clinic built by Mercy Memorial in 1997 and leased to Love County is purchased by Love County. Love County Commissioners approve a $275,000 expenditure from accrued hospital funding to retire debt on the clinic. Both hospital and clinic are now owned by the people of Love County.
The hospital/EMS contract with WinStar Casinos is extended once again after a new fire station/ambulance bay opens on casino grounds in the fall of 2008. Responsibilities include creation of a new emergency service specialist-fire brigade position. Medics are cross-trained to provide fire prevention, protection, and rescue.
Love County EMS and Mercy Health/Love County become first EMS in Oklahoma to offer Paramedic and Basic EMT education to the public. Utilitizing two-way teleconferencing set up by the hospital's training center in Marietta and at station two at WinStar Casino, the institutions contract with technology centers for paramedic and basic EMT instructors. The first paramedic class gets underway in February to include 18 months of classroom instruction and 400 hours of skills training, both coordinated by the hospital/EMS trainer.
Hospital launches a website with complete information about hospital, clinic, emergency room, doctor, radiology, laboratory, and rehabilitation services. The site can be found at www.mercyhealthlovecounty.com or www.lovecountyhealthcenter.com.
2009
First paramedics graduate from the EMS/hospital training center.
Dr. O'Connor is named Physician of the Year by the Oklahoma Academy of Physician Assistants.
Radiography department goes filmless. X-ray equipment has dispensed with film and converted to digital imaging. Instead of taking exposed film into a darkroom for time-consuming development , the imaging plate is run through a laser scanner that reads and digitizes the image. The images can be sent via computer to the doctor's office.
Picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) is acquired to convert old x-ray films into digital images.
Love County voters approve telephone service fees to upgrade the 911 answering system. About 1,000 votes are cast, 90% of them in favor of a 15% monthly service fee on landlines and a $.50 monthly service fee on wireless phones. Enhanced 911 will take three years for the County Commissioners to implement. Among the benefits: instant recognition of where callers are located, shortening response time; naming all roads; and addressing of all homes and businesses. Rural address and highway contract mail will go away, to be replaced with locatable house number and street/road name mail service throughout the county. For the first time, rural residents will qualify for package delivery, such as Fedex or UPS, to their homes.