Samaritan Healthcare | The Samaritan | Spring 2018

As we look ahead to 2020, it provides a perfect opportunity to review our bold, founding roots as Samaritan Hospital. What historical events served to bring us to where we are today? What continuing role do we have, at Samaritan Healthcare, in fulfilling our mission to provide healthcare to all? Let’s take a brief journey back into the history of Samaritan to see the amazing chain of events that has allowed us to be here today. building our future SAMARITAN HOSPITAL’S BEGINNINGS We, Samaritan, are the Healers. How did Samaritan Healthcare become an integral component of the Moses Lake historical narrative? After World War II, Moses Lake continued to grow, and our families knew we needed our own hospital nearby. On Dec. 2, 1947, a vote was conducted to start the first Public Hospital District, and it won with a large majority. In February 1949, more than 100 volunteers went door-to-door seeking donations. In an overwhelming show of support for the hospital, more than 1,500 families gave a total of $27,000, and Samaritan Hospital opened nine months later on Nov. 16, 1949. The need for local healthcare was so urgent, the hospital had seven patients within 18 hours after opening—four hours ahead of schedule. Our name, Samaritan Hospital, was chosen to reflect the helping- hand values of the biblical Good Samaritan. In his remarks to herald the occasion, the founding commissioner, Joe Jantz of Ruff, compared the parable to the helping hand that Samaritan Hospital was now prepared to offer to the sick and injured of Ruff, Warden, and Moses Lake. OUR 1947 VISION CONTINUES Today, we’re honored to carry on the brave story and example set forth by our founding mothers and fathers.The heritage to always do what’s right. To put others above self. To serve an entire community and all of its people. One example of how we have been serving our area has been revealed over this past year. We, your Samaritan Healthcare family, have brought orthopaedics, podiatry, OB-GYN, pediatrics, an improved Emergency Department, and expanded family medicine to the communities of the inland Northwest. And we believe the best is yet to come. Our 2020 vision is to continue caring for our community— expanding your access to care and continuing to purposefully grow our specialties of care. Still true today is the view expressed in the Columbia Basin Herald editorial on May 25, 1955, which praised the 4 THE SAMARITAN From the CEO Samaritan Healthcare HONORING OUR PAST, “This is our hospital. It’s your hospital. And I hope every person in the district comes to feel that it’s ‘my’ hospital.” — Fred Radach, chairman of the board of commissioners, 1949