Quick Search

In the summer of 1887, Rev. Henry O. Lacy, rector of St. Pauls Episcopal Church, could see a growing city - and a growing need for healthcare. The Ladies Twin City Hospital Association, a group of volunteers, took up Rev. Lacy's cause and began making plans.

But they did more than talk. They took action. Before six months had passed, the women used money saved from their household funds to open up a hospital inside the Martin Grogan home on North Liberty Street, where up to 10 patients could be hospitalized for $5 a week.

The women went door to door, meeting to meeting, raising money from anyone who would give them a contribution. the mayors of both Winston and of Salem were each asked to give $12 a month toward the effort.

Within four years, the Grogan House was badly in need of repair. The women stepped up their fundraising efforts by showing people in the two towns how their money had been used in the past - and by being able to describe in detail how many people had been helped. They raised $5,000 and opened the Twin City Hospital: 12 private rooms, two wards and an operating room.

Later, overcrowded and still without significant funding or equipment, Twin City Hospital moved to Brookstown Avenue. In 1912, Winston voters approved bonds for a modern hospital to be constructed on East Fourth Street. And within two years, the modern Twin City accepted its first patient.

That's the way things stood, at least structurally, until 1959. That year, voters approved a bond referendum to build a modern hospital on 77 acres along Silas Creek Parkway. Forsyth Memorial Hospital, owned and managed by Forsyth County, opened in 1964.

Progress - and change - have been the constant through the decades. In 1984, the hospital property was deeded from Forsyth County to Carolina Medicorp Inc., a non-profit organization. The transfer required that the new organization would provide indigent care for citizens of Forsyth County.

The 1980s, especially, brought rapid change. CMI purchased Medical Park Hospital, and Forsyth Medical Center Hawthorne Oupatient Surgery, Martinat Outpatient Rehabilitation Center and Behavioral Health Resources began operations during those years. By decade's end, the hospital building itself had grown with the addition of the West Tower.

But the biggest changes lay straight ahead. In 1997, CMI and Presbyterian Healthcare in Charlotte merged to form Novant Health, which now encompasses six hospitals, three philanthropic foundations, two long-term care and senior residential facilities, physician clinics, outpatient surgery and diagnostic centers, rehabilitation programs and community health outreach programs.

Forsyth Medical Center, now at 847 beds, with nearby Medical Park Hospital with 136 beds, gives Winston-Salem one of the largest, best-equipped hospital facilities in the state. More growth is on the horizon, with plans for a new emergency department, a new intensive care unit and a new women's center in the works.

We enter the future with much to be thankful for. We're fortunate at Forsyth Medical Center because we are the healthcare provider of choice in this region.

The patients who come to us know they can count on care that is state-of-the-art and second to none, from the advanced treatments available through the clinical research that we conduct, to the medical equipment we've invested in, to the academic qualifications - and caring natures - of our doctors and nurses.

Each of the thousands upon thousands of patients who have made their way to us over more than a century have had a story to tell, each different but each with a common theme:

We've taken care of them and at the same time, we've improved the health care in the communities we serve.

One patient at a time.