SOUTH SUNFLOWER COUNTY HOSPITAL AT INDIANOLA, 1952— This image, which dates to 1952, is a postcard of 53-bed South Sunflower County Hospital, which is located at 121 East Baker Street in Indianola, Mississippi. This $496,000 hospital, designed by Jackson architects Jones and Haas, officially opened in May, 1952, with “53 beds, a medical staff of eleven, sixteen nurses, bookkeeper, and other personnel.”1 This image follows our last issue’s feature on King’s Daughters Hospital at Indianola, which opened on October 22, 1939, and was the ancestor of this institution.2 King’s Daughters Hospital at Indianola, which had 25 beds, operated at “full-capacity” most of its existence, and “the need soon developed for more room.”3 Original plans called for an annex to expand the hospital. However, with the passage of the Hill-Burton Act by Congress in 1946, local leaders realized that with federal help a much larger new hospital, publicly owned, could be built. The South Sunflower County Hospital District was created for this purpose on November 4, 1947, which included Supervisor’s Districts in Sunflower County Numbers 1, 2, and 3, which would own the new hospital.4
By 1949, plans had been drawn up for a new 50-bed hospital in Indianola to be built on a four-acre site on U. S. Highway 82, directly across Baker Street from the old King’s Daughters Hospital. This original hospital was transferred gradually from King’s Daughters ownership to county ownership and operation after the creation of the South Sunflower County Hospital District.3,5 South Sunflower’s construction was largely completed by 1951,6 but its opening was delayed until the next year. In early 1952, the hospital’s operations finally moved across the street to begin its life in a new building as a new institution: South Sunflower County Hospital.1 The old King’s Daughters structure was converted into a nurse’s residence, called the “Nurses’ Home,” which opened in 1954.7 Mississippi Delta Junior College would continue this nurse training tradition by establishing in 1971 a Licensed Practical Nurses program based at the hospital.8 The hospital continues this tradition as a training site for nurses and other medical personnel.
Over many years, significant remodelings and enlargements have maintained this hospital’s state-of-the-art services for its rural patients. The now 49-bed general acute care hospital maintains a busy emergency room, inpatient acute care and swing bed services, laboratory services, behavioral health, obstetrical suites, newborn care, telemetry, radiology, surgical services with a surgical clinic, wound care, ICU, ENT services, podiatry, therapy of many types, three rural family practice clinics, and other ancillary services. In 2013, the hospital embarked on a significant renovation project which was completed in July 2017 as a modern, well-equipped, full-service facility. The hospital is frequently cited as one of the more successful rural hospitals in Mississippi whose patient-centered health care system meets the needs of its community. The South Sunflower County Hospital is the fourth largest employer in Indianola with a total economic impact of $48,110,000 for Sunflower County.9 A lovely interview with the legendary Dr. Walter Rose entitled a “History of South Sunflower County Hospital” was conducted in July 2017, and he tells an elegant history of the hospital. This engaging interview and more on this remarkable hospital can be accessed at https://www.southsunflower.com/history.10
If you have an old or even somewhat recent photograph which would be of interest to Mississippi physicians, please send it to me at drluciuslampton@gmail.com or by snail mail to the Journal. — Lucius M. “Luke” Lampton, MD; JMSMA Editor