Ellinwood’s Hospital celebrates 65 years of service

Throughout the years, the services offered have changed, but the focus has always been the same: quality patient care, served with compassion and focus on comfort.

Ellinwood Hospital and Clinic is celebrating its 65th year in Ellinwood with a joint Ellinwood and Great Bend Chamber Coffee, Thursday, November 16, at 9:30am in the Hospital’s Education Room. The Hospital and the Ellinwood Hospital Foundation invite the community to attend.

Ellinwood District Hospital opened its doors for patients on October 21, 1952 and has served faithfully ever since. Originally operated by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Wichita, and then by the Great Plains Lutheran Hospital Association, which later became the Great Plains Health Alliance, the service has always focused on the healing of body, mind, and spirit.

“Past generations and future generations should find comfort in knowing that our commitment to compassionate and quality healthcare hasn’t changed since we started and it won’t change as we look to the future. We always have, and always will, endeavor to be true to our patients and their families,” reports Kile Magner, Ellinwood Hospital and Clinic CEO.

Today, the Ellinwood Hospital is a 25-bed Critical Access Hospital. The hospital provides a 24/7 emergency care and inpatient acute care, skilled swing bed, and intermediate swing bed care and many outpatient services: endoscopy, physical, occupational, and speech therapy, a full service laboratory, and a full range of imaging services – traditional x-ray, CT, mammography, US/sonography, MRI, DXA.

The hospital also operates the Ellinwood Clinic, a Rural Health Clinic, offering full family care, from newborn to geriatric care, provided by practitioners that truly care about patients and their families. The clinic opened in 1993 and has provided service to generations of families.

Between the two entities, the hospital is the second largest employer in Ellinwood, employing 79 people. The impact the hospital has is hard to measure fully, but please see the Hospital Impact Statement on the back page of this section for information about what it means to have the hospital in our community.

The information provided in this special section will give you a look into not only services and programs offered at the hospital and clinic, but also to what it means to have out hospital and serve our patients.