The ‘old' new hospital

To the editor: Warwick is getting an improved hospital —an event to be celebrated! So it also was 91 years ago when the first Warwick Hospital was being planned. This interview was recently uncovered from a Dec. 1, 1915 article in the Warwick Valley Dispatch and transcribed by Mr. Terry Hann. The comments are those of H. K. Bradner, who founded the first facility on Forester Avenue, the current Smith-Welling Professional Building: “For years the population of Warwick voiced the opinion that a town of its size was in urgent need of a local hospital and should not depend upon those of other towns or cities. Actuated by this public demand the recently sold Servin estate has been acquired and is rapidly being remodeled to suit the requirements of a modern surgical and convalescent hospital. It will contain, when completed, a thoroughly appointed operating room with the necessary sterilizing equipment and bedroom for about twenty operable patients. In addition, there will soon be X-ray and laboratory facilities for any of the modern scientific tests. “Dr. H. K. Bradner will move his home and office into this hospital, thereby materially adding to its equipment - and Dr. Bernard McDowell Krug, already known to Warwick, has consented to join in this work and likewise will live at the hospital. Dr. Krug has been connected with the University Hospital of Philadelphia and the Union Pacific Hospital of San Francisco. He is at present returning from a trip to Brazil and will shortly take up his residence at the Wawayanda Hospital. “As an individual enterprise it is not to be confused with sanatoriums or like institutions, for it is desirable that all the medical fraternity will feel at liberty to send their operable patients to the hospital and thereby enjoy the long sought for adjuncts which are so indispensable to such cases. It is the earnest desire to cooperate with the medical brethren of village and town and to offer through them to Warwick every facility that this small beginning may have within its grasp. “Again, as there is in mind to build further additions, it may develop that Warwick will, at that time, desire a purely public ward and this idea can, of course, be readily accomplished. Finally, the private patients of the Drs. in charge, whether in operable cases or convalescent, can be more properly attended to and taken care of. Thus, the Drs. feel they have combined under fairly favorable circumstances a long desired need of Warwick and a fulfilled hope of their own.” Note that some time between when the article was written and the opening of the facility, the name was changed to “Warwick Hospital,” perhaps to avoid confusion with any facilities in the Town of Wawayanda. The hospital eventually closed in cooperation with the next “new” facility, St. Anthony Community Hospital; in each decade, our public service institutions have always grown and renewed themselves to meet the needs of current residents. Sue Gardner Local History Librarian Albert Wisner Public Library