Parma Hospital Celebrates 50th Anniversary With Gala On June 18

Parma Community General Hospital will hold a black-tie gala on Saturday, June 18 to celebrate 50 years of caring for the community. The event, held at Embassy Suites in Independence beginning at 6 p.m., will include a display of hospital memorabilia and photographs, dancing to an 18-piece orchestra and the unveiling of an original piece of artwork created especially for the occasion by renowned artist Hector Vega.

“At Parma Hospital, treating you better really does begin with knowing you better, and we find it an honor to care for our neighbors, family and friends,” said President & CEO Terrence G. Deis. “We look forward to continuing to deliver excellent, personalized care into the next half century.”

From a plot of farmland

“Building a hospital in this part of Southwest Cleveland is a most worthwhile challenge,” states the literature published in 1958 as part of the campaign to raise support for a new community hospital. “It is a rare endeavor, if not the only endeavor, where several communities have joined hands for a common civic improvement beneficial to each.”

A population boom in the 1950s throughout the southwestern suburbs – with Parma growing 152 percent and Parma Heights expanding by 256 percent in less than a decade – fueled the campaign for a community hospital to care for the growing number of residents. A plot of farmland off Ridge Road was selected for the construction of a new hospital.

Six communities worked together to establish Parma Community General Hospital: Parma, Parma Heights, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights, North Royalton and Seven Hills. Representatives from each of these communities are recommended for appointment by their respective mayors to the Hospital’s Board of Directors.

Busy from the beginning

When the Hospital opened its doors in August 1961, it had 200 beds, a large maternity unit, and modern operating, radiology and physical rehabilitation units. Within a few years it was fully accredited and joined the Cleveland Hospital Council.

By the early 1970s, the Hospital had broken ground on extensive additions, including a three-floor tower that would hold a new Intensive Care Unit, a Coronary Care Unit and two critical care stepdown units. Within five years, another two-story expansion was underway.  In the 1980s, the Hospital would build several medical office buildings and lease the former Fay Junior High School that now houses the

Health Education Center, allowing the Hospital to provide ElderCenter adult day services with multiple programs, a Child Care Center for hospital employees and the public, award-winning Home Health Care, and an EMS Education Program that has served the region’s safety services for the past 25 years.

Decades of growth, expansion

In the 1990s, Parma Hospital grew rapidly, adding the Pain Center, expanding the inpatient Acute Rehabilitation Center, modernizing the Small Wonders Maternity Center and adding the Behavioral Center for Older Adults, a geriatric psychiatric unit. Parma Hospital won its first of numerous awards for excellence in orthopedics the year before the 1999 opening of The Heart Center, a cardiovascular intensive care unit that would garner its own array of awards, including the 100 Top Hospitals for Cardiovascular Care more than once and the fastest heart attack care in the region through the Code STEMI program.

The past decade brought the addition of outpatient oncology care in a community setting and the opening of a new Residential Hospice on Pleasant Valley Lake. Parma Hospital also enlarged its Emergency Department, adding an innovative Doc at the Door program for efficient triage, built a new Intensive Care Unit and added a Vascular Lab. Outpatient radiology services were brought to both Ridge Park Square in Brooklyn and WellPointe Pavilion, a gem of outpatient services also offering therapy and lab services and physician offices in Broadview Heights.

A community partner

Parma Hospital has formed numerous partnerships to advance the health of the community, including the establishment of a Tri-C Nursing Program at Parma Hospital, where Cuyahoga Community College provides clinical instruction to registered nurse students who receive their training at the hospital.

Deis is proud that the hospital, with nearly 2,000 employees, has flourished as a community partner. In January, Parma Hospital was honored by the Parma Area Chamber of Commerce with a Golden Pride Award for its special contributions to the community.

“I’m very proud of our organization and the accolades we receive nationally, regionally and locally,” Deis said. “Such awards are a tribute to the hard work and integrity of our employees, management and medical staff.”

Reserve your seat for the June 18 gala by calling 440-743-4280. Individual tickets are $100 and tables of 10 are $850.