NCH grows
into its own system

By Lis Freeman, staff writer

Forty years ago a handful of Naples residents had a notion that their tiny community should have its own hospital.

Today, the NCH Healthcare System encompasses two hospitals - the 434-bed main facility near downtown Naples and the 50-bed North Collier Hospital off Immokalee Road in North Naples - and an array of urgent-care centers, day surgery facilities, diagnostic and rehabilitation centers, home-care programs, health education services and more.

In the early 1950s when Collier County's population was a meager 6,000 people, many of them concentrated in the Everglades City area because fishing was the backbone of the fledgling community, the group of residents who had been nurturing the idea of building a hospital formed a nonprofit organization to launch the initiative.

"People either went back home or to Lee Memorial Hospital (in Lee County), which had been around for 40 years," said Jim Bingham, director of community relations for NCH. "In the '50s, Florida had very little health care because most of it was just small little towns."

A charter for a hospital was drafted and submitted to the Twelfth Judicial Circuit Court and 25 citizens signed an application seeking approval to proceed. The group, meanwhile, kept busy raising money - the goal was $500,000 - and a board of trustees was elected. Appointed as president was Beatrice Branch Briggs and others who were instrumental including Lester J. Norris, A.B. Miller and Henry Watkins Sr., all noted pioneers in the community whose imprint is still felt today.

"Mrs. Briggs really took the leadership," Bingham said. "There's an oil (painting) of her in the main lobby."

In November 1955, Naples Memorial Hospital was chartered and the enthusiastic board of trustees was on its way. Land off Seventh Street North and Fourth Avenue North was donated by the Watkins family.

"A group of people protested its location because it was too far out of town," said Sally Sitta, assistant vice president of volunteer services, a post she has held since 1973. For 10 years prior, Sitta had been a volunteer.

Despite protests of the planned location, a ground-breaking ceremony was held in December 1954 for a 50-bed hospital. The following spring as construction continued, the board announced that a list of contributors to the building fund, a copy of the charter and by-laws and two copies of the Collier County News would be placed in a copper box in the hospital cornerstone during the first annual Hospital Day slated for March 6, 1955. On that day, nearly 200 Neapolitans turned out to watch the laying of the cornerstone.

Shortly thereafter, the board decided to change the name of the future hospital, replacing "memorial" with "community" to "better express the purpose and intent of the hospital," according to a statement issued to the Collier County News.

On March 7, 1956, the doors to the hospital were opened, marking a grand occasion in Collier County. A few days earlier the newspaper had published a special edition to herald the hospital's arrival, the second largest edition ever, surpassed only once 28 years earlier with the opening of the Tamiami Trail.

Part of the wonderment of the tiny state-of-the-art hospital - mostly used for treating snake bites, cuts and childhood ailments but which also had a bustling maternity ward - was its elegant decor. The renowned New York interior designer Dorothy Draper, a personal friend of the Norris family, provided her expertise, Sitta said.

The lobby and waiting area, dining room that could seat 75 people and patient rooms were the designer's inspiration, featuring hand-painted wallpaper and hand-painted china, Sitta said. A hand-carved wood decoration to encircle the clock in the main lobby, another idea of Draper's, hangs today behind the information desk, Sitta said.

"There was a pediatrics department they (the board) wanted to make colorful, and they brought a bird book to physicians," Sitta said. The physicians picked out birds and other designs and two artists painted them on the wallpaper, she said.

"I have some of that wallpaper still rolled up in my office," she said.

All the decorations and furnishings were paid for through private donations and fund-raisers. Contributions to the hospital project involved most everyone in the community, from the Jaycees to the garden clubs, records show.

After the hospital's opening and during its early years, business was not brisk but because there were no nursing homes in Collier County, some people who needed long-term care would live at the hospital, Sitta said. Former Naples Mayor Speed Menefee stayed seven years, she said. He died in 1968.

Another feature was the hospital chef who catered to the individual dietary needs and desires of the patients. Each day he would visit with patients and ask what they wanted to eat."

"If it was fish he would go to the fish house to get it or fishermen in town would bring him special fish," Sitta said.

The hospital's original budget in 1956 was $205,477 and the board of trustees was projecting a shortfall of $32,444, according to records. Various benefactors would check in to see how much the hospital owed its suppliers and they would draw personal checks to clear the books, said Sitta's son, Bob Sitta, who teaches history at Edison Community College. He also has written an account of NCH.

"The hospital didn't make money for years," he said.

In 1956 a private luxury room went for $40 and a semi-private room cost $13, records show. Two-bedroom homes were advertised for $6,500, a pound of steak went for 69 cents and the newspaper cost a dime.

Not until 1964 did the hospital undergo any changes and then it was to add six beds as a temporary measure until a larger expansion effort was started, he said.

"When I came to town (as a boy) they were just adding the six beds," he said. "It was a friendly place (with) a little gift shop and coffee shop combo with a counter and six stools. Everything was tiny."

An ambitious fund-raising campaign began in 1966 for a major expansion to keep up with the growing community. Construction was started on a north tower for a six-floor addition in which the first three floors were built and the top three floors were "shelled in" so the interiors could be completed later, he said.

When the north tower was finished in the 1970s, bringing the number of beds to 300, plans were started for a south tower to bring the bed total to more than 400. That phase of work also entailed demolishing the building that housed the original 50-bed hospital to a build support services building.

Throughout the 1980s as health-care services became more specialized, the NCH Healthcare System expanded in response to the changing industry. The Carpenter-Briggs Radiation Therapy Center was completed, the Wellness Center for preventive health care was opened and so was the Beatrice Branch Briggs Health Resource Center to offer the public educational materials for their health-care needs.

As Collier's growth continued, particularly in the northern part of the county, the NCH board of trustees planned for an $18 million satellite hospital and debuted in January 1990 the 50-bed North Collier Hospital off Immokalee Road featuring its own emergency room, surgical facilities and other acute-care services. Urgent-care centers in Golden Gate and Marco Island were opened and construction was started on the Isabel Collier Read Immokalee Health Park in Immokalee, which opened in November 1995.

More recent endeavors involve building a $10 million open-heart surgery unit at the main hospital near downtown Naples, upgrading the emergency room and a planned relocation of all women's and children's services to North Collier Hospital.

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