Vision From the Hill Video: Sharp Chula Vista

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Transcript

Narrator: The year was 1888. Grover Cleveland was the nation’s 22nd president. George Eastman called his new amateur camera the Kodak. And that winter the legendary blizzard of ’88 paralyzed the East Coast. By then more than 1 million people had decided they preferred both the weather and the economic climate of the Golden State. 

California Gov. Robert Waterman, nicknamed Old Honesty, promised he’d run the state like a business and not tolerate dishonesty, drunkenness or excessive spending. A new century was on the horizon and California Spanish land-grant ranches were giving way to farming and development. In the pastoral countryside south of San Diego, cattle and horses grazed on the vast Rancho de la Nación, or National Ranch. 

The area destined to become National City, Bonita, Sunnyside, the Sweetwater Valley and Chula Vista. 1888 was a milestone year for San Diego County’s rural South Bay. The ambitious 90-foot Sweetwater Dam was completed and began to provide the precious water that would nurture the growth of homes and agriculture in the decades to come. The National City and Otay Railroad tied the South Bay communities together. And, in Chula Vista, developers were doing a brisk business selling 5-acre lots for $300 an acre. 

As irrigation mixed with sunshine, the fledgling city of Chula Vista became the world’s largest lemon-growing center with eight packinghouses in the town. Despite freezes, droughts, storms and floods, the little agricultural town continued to thrive. In 1960, the Hercules Powder Company operated the largest kelp harvesting feed in the world. The kelp processing plant was located on Gunpowder Point, now the site of the Chula Vista Nature Center. The Great Depression took a serious toll, but Chula Vista’s farming revenue continued to sustain the community of 5,000 people. 

During World War II, countless thousands would come to know San Diego County. In Chula Vista, Rohr Aircraft Corporation alone employed more than 9,000 workers at the height of wartime production and the city would triple to 16,000 people in less than a decade. There was no acute-care hospital in Chula Vista to serve the wartime citizen population so, over on F Street, Jack and Dora Raney converted an old 2-story house into a 14-bed nursing home to help meet the shortage. By 1945, their Rancourt Nursing Home had expanded to 27 beds and was licensed for acute care. It was the birth of Chula Vista Hospital. 

After the war, an Army Air Corps nurse named Helen M. Snortland returned home from duty in France as director of nurses for the hospital. She would serve for more than 30 years. Over the next two decades, Chula Vista Hospital expanded downtown to a total of 88 beds and 30 bassinets and occupied an entire city block. Services were spread out among the hospital buildings and 12 residences. 

By 1964, the former lemon capital had blossomed to a city of nearly 50,000 people. A nice home could be purchased for about $15,000. On Jan.1, 1965, Community Hospital of Chula Vista was incorporated as a nonprofit entity. By selling at a price significantly below its value, Dora Raney became one of the hospital’s first philanthropists. The auxiliary was organized a year later with 70 members. For many years this committed group would be the hospital’s sole fundraising organization. And it would become the greatest benefactor with more than $2 million in contributions. 

By 1970, the hospital’s leadership had a clear vision for an up-to-date new hospital for Chula Vista. Doubters questioned the logic of building on a hill way out in the boondocks. Some people said, "Why, if you stand on top of that hilltop along Telegraph Canyon, there’s nothing as far as the eye can see." But the hospital’s board saw the path of growth. That 30-acre parcel bordering Telegraph Canyon was purchased for the grand total of $165,000. And in September 1972, ground was broken for a modern, new, 131-bed hospital. Some 250 individuals, service groups, banks, corporations and businesses, along with employees and physicians, contributed more than $700,000. 

On May 24, 1975, 14 ambulances arrived at the old hospital on F Street to transport patients to the brand-new community hospital of Chula Vista. The convoy made its way east to 751 Dora Lane, named in honor of health care pioneer Dora Raney, who was the founder and owner of the original hospital. The administrator was Nurse Helen Snortland, who had worked tirelessly for a decade to help make the new hospital a reality. From the top of Dora Lane, the new hospital certainly did have a great view. And as Chula Vista began to prosper around them, perhaps it was that view that inspired hospital leaders such as Bud Wilson, Dottie Helm and Bob Hansen, to always look to the future. It was a vision to grow with their community, a vision that has remained clear and focused for three decades. 

1977 — The first EMI total body scanner in the south bay. 

1979 — The first of four medical office buildings.1985, the Birch-Patrick Convalescent Center, made possible in part by area landowner, Mary Birch Patrick. 

1987 — The South Bay’s only full-service cardiac program, providing open-heart surgery, angioplasty, catheterization and rehabilitation. 

1989 — The board of directors of Community Hospital of Chula Vista affiliated with Sharp HealthCare. 

Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center would have the resources to meet the needs of a community that had become one of the fastest growing in the nation. 1992 saw a new $30 million patient tower with medical and surgical units, obstetrics and a neonatal nursery. Less than a decade later, an innovative outpatient surgery and diagnostic imaging center opened on the Sharp Chula Vista campus. Through the skill and dedication of thousands of physicians, employees and volunteers, and the generosity of countless individuals, businesses and organizations, that once-barren hilltop is now home to South Bay’s health care leader. 

Thanks to them, today’s Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center includes the Theo and Francis Lamb Intensive Care Unit, one of the most advanced and patient-focused in the nation. Its emergency department handles more than 10 times the number of patients than when it opened. The radiation-oncology unit is the only technology of its kind in the South Bay. The state-of-the-art Ann and Dick Dickerson Cardiac Catheterization Lab is part of one of the most comprehensive cardiac programs in the county. As before, through skill, dedication and community partnership, the next chapters of Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center’s history will be inspired by a vision from the hill.