Local health care finds citizen support
By SHANNON CRABTREE

Bartering may have stopped decades ago, but El Campo health care still has the personal touch of a time when doctors made house calls and a basket of eggs covered co-pay expectations.

With a population of just under 11,000 inside the city limits, El Campo has two major medical clinics, one hospital and a host of private practitioners, dentists, chiropractors, optometrists and others who help ensure the health of the city and surrounding area.

The first hospital of any size in El Campo was Nightingale - constructed in 1939 as part of the Depression era Civilian Conservation Corps project list.

When a change in federal regulations made the hospital too expensive to renovate and save, El Campoans weren't ready to give up and surrender their surgeons and other health care professionals.

Instead, they bound together to form the El Campo Medical Foundation and gathered funding to build a new facility.

Construction on the almost $2.9 million facility began May 6, 1977 - and within six months, the community had provided more than $1.3 million in cash and pledges.

The rest of the funding came from the foundation - some of which was used to purchase equipment and provide for operating capital during the first months.

El Campo Memorial Hospital was dedicated on March 11, 1979 and has served the community ever since, renovating as time and technology required.

The hospital's future was jeopardized in the early 1990's when the health corporation serving it announced it would cease operations - and again, the public scrambled to save its hospital.

A massive grass roots effort led to the creation of the West Wharton County Hospital District, a taxing entity dedicated to keeping the doors of El Campo's hospital open.

The district secured a $2.5 million loan which ensured El Campo Memorial would continue to operate.

The note was retired in 2005. The hospital now sustains itself with fees from services and dollars from the taxing district for capital needs.

And health care choices in El Campo are expanding.

Mid Coast Medical Clinic, located beside ECMH, underwent an expansion last year.

The city boasts five practicing dentists and two orthodontists.

South Texas Medical Clinic, formed in 1985, also has a branch clinic in El Campo, with a number of full-time specialists.

El Campo Eye Center, with its connection to the Berkeley Eye Center in Houston, is able to take care of most optometric procedures.