Carraway Methodist Medical Center: Difference between revisions
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'''Carraway Methodist Medical Center''' was a medical facility in [[Birmingham, Alabama]] founded as '''Carraway Infirmary''' in 1908 by Dr. Charles N. Carraway. It was moved in 1917 to Birmingham's Norwood neighborhood. It was [[Racial segregation|segragate]]d according to skin color for much of its history and |
'''Carraway Methodist Medical Center''' was a medical facility in [[Birmingham, Alabama]] founded as '''Carraway Infirmary''' in 1908 by Dr. Charles N. Carraway. It was moved in 1917 to Birmingham's Norwood neighborhood. It was [[Racial segregation|segragate]]d according to skin color for much of its history and in one instance excluded an injured black civil rights activist all together. It expanded in the 1950s and 1960s and ran into financial trouble in the 2000s, declaring bankruptcy in 2008. It's future was uncertain as of 2009. |
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==History== |
==History== |
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Revision as of 04:54, 31 October 2009
Carraway Methodist Medical Center was a medical facility in Birmingham, Alabama founded as Carraway Infirmary in 1908 by Dr. Charles N. Carraway. It was moved in 1917 to Birmingham's Norwood neighborhood. It was segragated according to skin color for much of its history and in one instance excluded an injured black civil rights activist all together. It expanded in the 1950s and 1960s and ran into financial trouble in the 2000s, declaring bankruptcy in 2008. It's future was uncertain as of 2009.
History
Dr. Charles N. Carraway founded the hospital in 1908, in a house in Pratt City, now a neighborhood in Birmingham, with the capacity to treat 16 patients.[1] Carraway was an innovator in many ways: "Carraway financed the new facility by getting Birmingham businesses to agree to pay $1 a month per employee, or $1.25 per family, for treatment. It was managed care before managed care even had a name."[2] In 1917,[2] Carraway bought a lot on the corner of Sixteenth Avenue and Twenty-fifth Street,[3] in the Norwood neighborhood, and moved the hospital, which came to be called the Norwood Hospital.[4] In 1949, the hospital received $200,000 in federal money to add a nursing wing.[5]
Carraway's son, Dr. Ben Carraway, took over in 1957, when it was called Carraway Methodist. He increased the hospital from 256 beds to 617.[2] A Christmas star placed on the roof in 1958 became a noted Birmingham landmark.[2][6]
The hospital got in financial difficulties in the beginning of the 2000s. At the time, it was run by the founder's grandson, Dr. Robert Carraway. According to The Birmingham News, two factors were responsible for the institution's financial demise: the decay of the Norwood neighborhood and "decades of decisions favoring patient care over profits."[2] It shut down on October 31, 2008. In 2009, the facility was being considered as the new home for the 340 patients at Bryce Hospital in Tuscaloosa.[7][8]
Notable incidents and patients
Much of Carraway's history took place during segregation, which "dictat[ed] virtually every element of Birmingham race relations."[9] A noteworthy incident involving the then-segregated[10] hospital happened in May of 1961, when the staff refused admittance to James Peck, a Freedom Rider who had been severely beaten by Klansmen after descending the Trailways bus, the second bus with Freedom Riders to leave Atlanta, Georgia; he was later treated at Jefferson Hillman Hospital.[11][12] The segregational policy of the hospital is rendered in prose fiction also, in Anthony Grooms's 2001 novel Bombingham.[13] By 1968, the hospital was racially integrated; a notable patient in 1968 was Robert Edward Chambliss, convicted in 1977 for the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.[14] In the 1970s still, accusations of racial preference in for instance hiring practices were made against the hospital.[15]
References
- ^ Incorrect date is cited in Atkins, Leah Rawls (1981). The valley and the hills: an illustrated history of Birmingham & Jefferson County. Windsor Publications. p. 188. ISBN 9780897810319.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ a b c d e Diel, Stan (2008-10-31). "Physicians Medical Center to many remained Carraway, when it was an innovator in trauma treatment". The Birmingham News. Retrieved 2009-10-22.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Weeks, J.D. (2007). Birmingham: Then & Now. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9780738543666.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ "About Us: Family History". Carraway Surgical. Retrieved 2009-10-21.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Scribner, Christopher MacGregor (2002). Renewing Birmingham: federal funding and the promise of change, 1929-1979. U of Georgia P. p. 40. ISBN 9780820323282.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Hollis, Tim (2008). Vintage Birmingham Signs. Arcadia Publishing. p. 102. ISBN 9780738553764.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Velasco, Anna (2009-10-09). "Former Carraway hospital considered as replacement for Bryce". The Birmingham News. Retrieved 2009-10-22.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ "Mental health agency rejects $60 million offer for hospital". Montgomery Advertiser. 2009-10-10. Retrieved 2009-10-22.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ McWilliams, Tennant S. (2007). New lights in the valley: the emergence of UAB Author Tennant S. McWilliams. U of Alabama P. p. 35. ISBN 9780300106350.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help); horizontal tab character in|title=at position 54 (help) - ^ May, Gary (2005). The informant: the FBI, the Ku Klux Klan, and the murder of Viola Liuzzo. Yale UP. p. 37. ISBN 9780300106350.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Arsenault, Raymond (2006). Freedom riders: 1961 and the struggle for racial justice. Oxford UP. p. 160. ISBN 9780195136746.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Branch, Taylor (1989). Parting the waters: America in the King years, 1954-63. Simon and Schuster. p. 423. ISBN 9780671687427.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Grooms, Anthony (2001). Bombingham: a novel. Free Press. p. 65. ISBN 9780743205580.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Smith, Petric J. (1994). Long time coming: an insider's story of the Birmingham church bombing that rocked the world. Crane Hill. p. 64. ISBN 9781881548102.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Raines, Howell (1979-04-22). "Black Doctors Assert Race Is Factor at Alabama Hospitals; Black Doctors Band Together". The New York Times.
{{cite news}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help)