2 minute read

EMANUEL MEDICAL CENTER

Next Article
HAUCK’S

HAUCK’S

Over 100 years of caring

BY KRISTINA HACKER

Emanuel Hospital opened its doors to the public on June 10, 1917, and 105 years later Emanuel Medical Center is still providing the best care possible to the residents of Turlock and surrounding communities.

The hospital has changed a lot of the years, in location, staffing and services offered, but the dedication to caring has remained the same.

The hospital was first established by the California Conference of Evangelical Covenant Church of America. When it opened on Canal Street in 1917, the hospital had 34 beds, three doctors on staff — Albert Julien, Eric Julien and James Collins, Sr. (with a physician from Atwater available to administer anesthesia when needed) — and two nurses, Justina Johnson and Sigrid Thorsen Clark.

Thorsen Clark recalled her memories of Emanuel’s opening for an EMC Heartbeat newsletter in 1982. She said that the hospital’s first patient was admitted about three hours after the doors were opened and the case load was seven after four days. The nursing staff soon grew from two to four, and in 1918 Emanuel Hospital established their first school of nursing.

Thorsen Clark said the nurses all lived in a cottage on the street in back of the hospital.

“As I recall,” she said in the newsletter, “there were six or eight (nurses) and such loyal women. Our first student died during the flu epidemic which swept over the community like a wild fire and caused many complications which called upon Emanuel for double duty.”

Thorsen Clark also said that she had never “seen a more devoted group than the Julien doctors. Patients always came first. Beautiful! Remember, friends, this was before the days of antibiotics and other new aids.”

The original hospital closed in 1966, with 57 beds, and reopened the same year on Delbon Avenue with 78 beds.

Today, Emanuel Medical Center has 209 beds and offers 24-hour emergency and trauma care.

The hospital, which was purchased by Tenet Healthcare in

TOP: Emanuel Hospital student nurses and their instructors pose for a picture circa 1925; ABOVE: When Emanuel Hospital was first opened on Canal Street in 1917, the hospital had 34 beds, three doctors on staff and two nurses.

SEE EMANUEL, PAGE 14

THEN

NOW

TURLOCK IRRIGATION DISTRICT

reliability through the years.

This article is from: