Merced Sun-Star Logo

Small-town hospital offers big-city expertise | Merced Sun-Star

×
  • E-edition
    • Customer Service
    • Mobile & Apps
    • Archives
    • Newsletters
    • Buy Photo
    • FAQ

    • All News
    • Local News
    • Business
    • Crime
    • Education
    • UC Merced
    • California News
    • Nation/World
    • Communities
    • Atwater
    • Chowchilla
    • Livingston
    • Los Banos
    • Mariposa & Yosemite
    • All Sports
    • High Schools
    • High School Athletes
    • High School Football
    • Merced College
    • UC Merced
    • Outdoors
    • NFL
    • NBA
    • MLB
    • Politics
    • Elections
    • The California Influencer Series
    • All Business
    • Agriculture
    • All Living
    • Celebrations
    • Food & Drink
    • Health & Fitness
    • Family
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Brigitte Bowers
    • Debbie Croft
    • Sarah Lim
    • Old Trainer
    • All Entertainment
    • Celebrations
    • Comics
    • Puzzles & Games
    • Horoscopes
    • All Opinion
    • Columns
    • Editorials
    • Influencers Opinion
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Submit a Letter
    • Obituaries
    • View Obituaries
    • Place Obituaries

    • dealsaver
    • Circulars
    • Classifieds
    • Place Classified Ad
    • Pets
    • Garage Sales
    • Real Estate
    • Apartment and Rentals
    • Jobs
    • RVs/Motorhomes
    • Merchandise
    • Service Directory
    • Place an Ad
    • Place Celebration
    • Place Obituary Ad
    • Place Classified Ad
    • Place Legal Ad
  • Jobs
  • Moonlighting
  • Cars
  • Homes
  • See Legal Notices
  • Mobile & Apps

Social Media

Small-town hospital offers big-city expertise

By Carol Reiter

creiter@mercedsun-star.com

    ORDER REPRINT →

February 08, 2008 04:33 PM

MARIPOSA - John C. Fremont Hospital, tucked into a side street in this little mountain town, isn’t your typical hospital.

In the spring and summer, wild turkeys hang around the helicopter pad, and deer graze on the front lawn. Some visitors to the hospital ride up on a horse, and the grounds are dotted with fish ponds.

But the community-supported hospital isn’t just a backwoods, rural place the community avoids. Instead, cutting-edge technology and skilled professionals are helping keep Mariposa residents healthy.

Lorna Coci, the communications coordinator for Fremont Hospital, walked through the building on Friday morning, saying hello to both patients and employees. “This is such a small town, I know almost everyone who is treated here,” she said.

SIGN UP

Sign Up and Save

Get six months of free digital access to the Merced Sun-Star

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

#ReadLocal

The hospital is an acute-care hospital, complete with a 24-hour emergency room and a total of 34 beds, which includes a skilled nursing facility.

The skilled nursing facility, or SNF, was busy Friday. Residents were playing bingo, working jigsaw puzzles or just enjoying the view of the gardens and mountains from big picture-windows. Coci walked through, talking to everyone, then stopped in front of an elderly woman and a younger man. “And this is my husband and my mother-in-law,” she said.

Family is important at Mariposa’s only hospital. Elnora George has been chief executive and chief financial officer for the facility since 1999. She is a fifth-generation Mariposa County resident and gave birth to her two daughters at Fremont. “I was in high school when this hospital opened in 1952,” George recalled.

The hospital got its start in the late 1940s, when the community voted to form a hospital district. The hospital was built at a cost of $464,000 for construction and $6,500 for the 20 acres it sits on.And the community still supports its hospital. Two years ago, the county’s citizens voted in a 1/4 percent sales tax hike that will go to keep the hospital afloat for the next 20 years. “What has made this hospital a success is the support of the community and the employees,” George said.

In the hospital’s pediatric room, brightly painted butterflies and plants decorate the walls. The paintings were done by a local group home to make a child’s stay at the hospital less scary. The volunteers at the hospital recently bought a pediatric crash cart for the emergency room. “When we get kids in here, it can be hairy,” Coci said.

Outside the hospital, a helicopter pad was recently enlarged to accommodate new and bigger medevacs. Patients who are too sick or injured to be treated at Fremont are flown to either Fresno or Modesto for their care.

During George’s tenure, the facility has switched over to digital radiology and has opened a hospice unit. A portable magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine rolls in once a week for patients.The hospital has also been designated as a critical access hospital. Rural hospitals located far from other health facilities, as Fremont is, get help from the government in the form of better reimbursement for Medicare because the hospitals provide necessary care.

“We are one of only 1,300 hospitals in the United States that have that designation,” said George. The hospital boasts three clinics and a roster of specialty physicians who each spend a couple of days a week at the facility. Across from the hospital, a MACT (Mariposa, Amador, Calaveras, Tuolumne) Health Board Indian clinic is located for the American Indians who live in the area. Fremont recently hired Dr. Stephen Lee, an internist. Lee actually lives in Los Angeles and Guam - he spends two weeks each month in Mariposa, and two weeks in Guam. “It’s fun practicing here, I’m not a big-city person,” Lee said.

Coci said it’s important for the hospital to have an internist because many of the truly sick people who come to the hospital have multiple issues. “We are lucky to have someone like Dr. Lee in Mariposa,” Coci said.

Having good doctors may keep the patients coming to Fremont, but George emphasized that it’s more than physicians who bring patients to the hospital.

“We couldn’t do any of this without the people of Mariposa County,” she said.So neither the hospital nor the folks who support it are typical.

Reporter Carol Reiter can be reached at 209 385-2486 or creiter@mercedsun-star.com.

  Comments  

Videos

Merced County deputies, officers involved in shooting. No injuries

Check out this entire wine appellation for sale near Ukiah at $3.3 million

View More Video

Trending Stories

Here’s when Merced and Atwater Payless Shoes stores are set to close for good

February 20, 2019 07:00 AM

Cop killed in standoff with Merced County officers shot at police vehicle, investigator says

February 21, 2019 05:07 PM

Head-on crash in Merced County causes SUV to turn over with woman, two children inside

February 20, 2019 09:41 PM

Man shot in south Merced, police say. Detectives are looking for information

February 20, 2019 06:24 PM

Atwater star earns CCC top award. Why one coach called the all-league voting a joke.

February 21, 2019 02:36 PM

Read Next

Social Media

Social Media

Facebook

Facebook

The Sun-Star is on Facebook!



"Like" us and we'll keep you up to date on what's happening in Merced County. You can also share your photos and send us news tips. Other FB sites of interest ...

The Shawn and Sean Show | Los Banos Enterprise

KEEP READING

Sign Up and Save

#ReadLocal

Get six months of free digital access to the Merced Sun-Star

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

MORE SOCIAL MEDIA

Social Media

Social Media

October 21, 2014 02:28 PM
Fire in Winton destroys house, marijuana plants

Social Media

Fire in Winton destroys house, marijuana plants

May 23, 2012 01:08 PM

Social Media

Live Blog: Division 1 baseball tournament: Buhach vs. Beyer

May 17, 2012 03:08 PM

Social Media

Live video at 7 p.m.: Merced County Board of Supervisors candidates debate

May 08, 2012 10:13 AM

Social Media

Air quality forecast

April 13, 2012 04:05 PM

Social Media

A job fair, voting changes and post-cancer help on 'Community Conversations'

April 13, 2012 01:59 PM
Take Us With You

Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand.

Icon for mobile apps

Merced Sun-Star App

View Newsletters

Subscriptions
  • Start a Subscription
  • Customer Service
  • eEdition
  • Vacation Hold
  • Pay Your Bill
  • Rewards
Learn More
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletters
  • News in Education
  • Archives
Advertising
  • Advertising Information
  • Place Obituary, Celebration
  • Place Classified, Legal
  • Local Deals
Copyright
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service


Back to Story