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Since opening the doors of its new hospital in January, 1966, St.
Mary’s Hospital, Athens, has experienced a period of rapid growth in the
number of in-patients and out-patients as well as in the volume of services
rendered.
There were several new service departments added to St.
Mary’s in its new facility; a Physical Therapy Department and a Nuclear
Medicine Department. The Physical Therapy Department has been by far the
fastest growing department with a total of 5,200 treatments in the past eight
months compared to only 1,600 treatments for the same period during the last
fiscal year.
The accelerated number of treatments being given has demonstrated
the increasing importance of the role of physical therapy as a part of
in-patient hospital care. The hospital also reports that the emergency
department averages 300 patients per month more in 1967 than 1966.
The major expansion at St. Mary’s has not been in facilities
or services, but in education programs for employees, students in health
occupations, and Neighborhood Youth Corps trainees.
Officials at St. Mary’s hospital are getting ready to install
their own TV channel-one they think will capture all the ratings in hospital
viewing.
Channel CCTV-for Closed Circuit TV-will let children, as well as
their parents, star on their own informal show broadcast from the hospital
lobby to the patients upstairs.
The name of this unique program, the first such in Georgia, is
“Visit-Vision” and hospital administrator, E.J. Fechtel, said reports
from other hospitals using the brand-new concept indicate it outstrips regular
TV programs two-to-one.
“Patients get a kick out of watching the children’s
antics as they talk over the screen to their parents,” he said. “They
even enjoy watching other people’s children,” he said “It’s
kinda like ‘Candid Camera.’”
The obvious purpose of the CCTV is public relations. Mr. Fetchtel
said that “even though hospitals don’t have to advertise to the
public, it’s nice to throw in as many creature comforts as possible to
make the patient’s stay as nice as possible.” |
