Part II: MOUNT HOPE HOSPITAL

In 1915  J.K. Millikin purchased an old mansion, the Nathaniel Wheeler house in North Dighton, to renovate it into a 15 bed hospital  which included an operating room.  It was located where later the bank would be across String St. from Johnny's Market/Joe's Pharmacy -
on the same side as the Post Office.

   It was staffed by two nurses, two assistants, and a doctor on call.

The hospital would have been a boon to the employees and their families as, for one thing, a growing population of women preferred hospitals as the place to give birth rather than at home.  In 1931 there were 708,889 births in U.S. hospitals, in 1942 there were 1,670,599.  We know that the delivery room at Mount Hope must have been a busy one.  The hospital was equipped to handle the deliveries and everyday work injuries and sicknesses.  Complicated cases were sent to Taunton or Fall River.  The very complicated to Boston on Rhode Island.


                                                       
                                                               Mount Hope Hospital in 1927
                                   

The hospital was primarily for the employees and their families, but

if special permission was sought from J.K others could be admitted.

Should an employee or his family need specialized care in Boston,

the company was known to provide for that.  At times, J.K. even 

went to Boston to visit the patient.

I found the above photo of an old type of hospital ward in my Pinterest file, it probably was what hospitals in the late 20's looked like.....note the metal beds.  When I was a nursing student in the 60's the hospital where I trained still had two large wards of 16 beds each, one for men and one for women.

A pithy tale is told by Arlene Gouveia: if a patient was very ill, straw or hay was strewn on the streets
outside so that the patient would not be disturbed by the sounds of horses hooves.....  Something that could only happen back in those days, today's hospital noises are impossible.

                                    This is a photo of a delivery room in the early 1900's....

The staffing at Mt. Hope Hospital signifies that the nurses there must have been very busy and also given a lot of responsibility.  One of them visited the Plant each day and would have handled many work related health or injury problems.  The photo from Pinterest is an example of nurses
caring for company employees.

       

Keep in mind  the following timeline:

*Only in 1921 was the Band-Aid introduced by Johnson and Johnson.

*In 1925, the cost of sickness per capita was $10 a year and $12 for loss of related employment wages.

*In 1928, Vitamin D was identified along with its role in rickets .

*Penicillin was discovered in 1928.  1929 saw the first group insurance plan formulated in Texas.

*The Iron Lung was invented in 1928.

So there were not a lot of remedies to chose from....

Black Thursday on Wall Street was in 1929 which plunged the country into deep depression.

Still the Mount Hope Hospital carried on until 1950 or 1951 when the company relocated.

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Next Post:  Why the Mount Hope Finishing Company left N. Dighton and the state.

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Resources for this post

Photographs of Nurses Source : Pinterest: Vintage Nurses, Vintage hospitals.

 Source of Mt. Hospital photos: I'm From Taunton Facebook Page as previously cited.  Thank you to Carol O'Connell Soares for her help with dates for Mt. Hope Hospital as well as photos of the hospital.

                                                      Source of Statistics and Timeline:
http://www.hhnmag.com/hhnmag/jsp/articledisplay.jsp?dcrpath=HHNMAG/Article/data/01JAN2007/0701HHN_FEA_80_Anniv&domain=HHNMAG