By Meladi Brewer

DailyAdvocate.com

GREENVILLE — Wayne HealthCare celebrated its 100th anniversary Saturday by hosting a Centennial Celebration, not only mark the occasion, but to showcase the healthcare provider’s new expansion as well.

“This is a celebration and a good day. It’s been a long time coming. We wanted to finally have an open house for this beautiful wing that we opened last March, and we obviously couldn’t do it when we opened in March because of Covid, President and CEO, Jeff Subler said. “It’s good that we had to wait because now it’s also our Centennial.”

Founded in 1922, Wayne HealthCare is a nationally ranked acute care hospital that provides inpatient and outpatient services within Darke County. According to the Foundation Executive Director, Lauren Henry, it takes a village to make the hospital run, especially for as long as it has.

“I just want to thank our staff, our team, and our leaders because they work tirelessly, especially over the last couple of years. It’s been really hard, and they always put the patient first,” Henry said.

She continues to say the staff comes in and provides compassionate care every day and has every year. During her Centennial Celebration speech, Henry recognized Subler for his hard work and dedication to the hospital by providing him with two gifts. One being a cornerstone time capsule to represent the expansion and the other a painting.

“The next one is a beautiful watercolor painting,” Henry said. “It’s been painted and donated by Don Mong.”

Mong was born in the hospital in 1957 and grew up in Greenville before moving to Rhode Island. His donated artwork shows the 1941 Wayne Hospital as it represents the year the hospital’s name was changed from Greenville Hospital to Wayne Hospital and the uniforms nurses would have worn during the time period.

Mong has artwork that he has donated all over town, and the hospital is honored to have one of his masterpieces of its own to display, especially now that visitors are able to view the new expansion.

“It’s been a while since we’ve been able to do an event here at the hospital, and we’ve been really anxious to show off this wonderful expansion,” Henry said.

For nearly a century, Wayne HealthCare has been a hometown hospital helping patients heal and providing care. The hospital expanded the building by 85,000-square-feet last year in order to better serve the growing healthcare needs.

“It’s always great to see a thought or design on paper become an actual building. I’ve had the fortune of doing two large projects since being here. Our addition in 2010 that has our ER and surgery center was great, and this was another great addition that we added,” Subler said.

In the last 12 years, Wayne HealthCare has almost tripled its square footage. This expansion was finally opened to the public to view on Friday during their 100 years celebration.

“It’s a fantastic thing for the community and we appreciate the community’s support to make that (the expansion) happen,” Subler said.

The expansion features a new inpatient unit with 32 private rooms that have hotel-like furniture, TVs with Facetime/Zoom capabilities, and they are Acuity-adaptable. The expansion also includes an expanded wellness center where clinical exercise, maintenance, and cooking programs can and will be held.

The new birthing center offers 11 birthing suites with everything the doctors need in the room to ensure the patient does not have to be moved from room to room unless absolutely necessary, and the C-section operation room allows the family the option to view the procedure through the viewing room. Each floor is only accessible via key card to ensure patients and babies are safe during their stay.

“We are always looking for the next new service line to provide for the community, and we really try to be open to the community’s needs. What do they need? What are they lacking? What can we provide here, so they do not have to drive to Dayton, Columbus, or Cincinnati, and that is why we have a lot of partners” Subler said.

Wayne HealthCare has partnered with Premier Health, MidMark Corp., and Spirit Medical Transport, Ohio State Health Network, Orthopedic Associates, and more. By partnering up, the hospital is able to provide all kinds of care and programs, locally, to best serve the community.

“We feel now that we are coming out of Covid that we can restart our programs,” Subler said. “We are excited about having them back and having this open house, so the community can see the addition and services we offer.”

Wayne HealthCare has come a long way in the last century and has grown and expanded since 1922. That growth does not plan on stopping anytime soon.

“Healthcare is a dynamic industry. It changes all the time, so we have to stay up with it as well and that is what we intend to do,” Subler said.

Wayne HealthCare wishes to thank all those who have helped make the hospital a success over the years through hard work, donations, and volunteering, and a thank you goes out to all who were involved with the celebration of the 100th Anniversary. A special thank you goes out to the community for supporting the hospital and making the expansion and anniversary possible.

For more information regarding Wayne HealthCare visit its website at www.waynehealthcare.org.

To contact Daily Advocate Reporter Meladi Brewer, email [email protected].