Event to commemorate former American River Hospital

In its heyday, American River Hospital was one of Sacramento's leading employers with more than 1,000 employees. More than 40,000 people were born there and hundreds of thousands others were treated.

The Carmichael medical facility was the first in the area to allow a father in the delivery room to experience the birth of a child.

"In the early years, it was a full emergency room," said retired surgeon John M. Reed, who worked at the hospital for nearly 30 years.

But traveling the 15-acre site between Engle Road and Gibbons Drive today, you wouldn't know it ever existed.

After admitting its first patient in 1962 and staying open for 38 years, it was closed in 2000.

The property was sold to a developer, who demolished the facility and replaced the operating rooms with living rooms.

"Not a speck or trace remains of this hospital," said former nurse Patricia Pratt, who with Reed is working to change that.

From noon to 3 p.m. June 7, an event will be held to commemorate the hospital at Gibbons Park, 4701 Gibbons Drive.

"What we are trying to do is to bring everyone who was born there, who got treated there, who worked there or had family members with ties there to come to a party," Pratt said.

"It is to renew old acquaintances and make new friends," said Pratt, who was a nurse there for 16 years.

To mark the spot of the former hospital, Reed, Pratt and others have collected donations and have constructed a commemorative marker as a monument to the hospital.

The rock with a brass plaque recently was installed at Gibbons Drive and Gibbons Park Way. The rock is on the northwest corner of an overflow parking area for the community center.

"It is 40 yards from where the emergency room was. I used to park there along with the patients," Reed said.

"Sacramento has a habit of getting rid of things and not leaving a trace for memories," Reed said, making a reference to the demolished Alhambra Theater.

"The monument is to mark the spot so that people will see it and know what was once there," Reed said.

"In the 1970s and 1980s, there were over 1,000 people who spent the better half of their careers there," said Reed, once a chief of staff at the hospital.

"There was a unique camaraderie among the employees," Reed said.

In its prime, the hospital had about 200 beds and had its own medical units for intensive care, cardiac, psychiatric, pediatric, oncology and laboratory services.

When the single-story hospital opened in 1962, it had 48 beds, 90 employees and 70 medical staff positions, two operating rooms, a delivery room, an emergency ward and eight bassinets.

The facility was painted in bright and bold colors in an effort to embrace a new medical trend. The front lobby was aqua, and the maternity ward was bright yellow with a blue love seat sleeper.

"It looked more like a hotel instead of a hospital because it was one story," Pratt said.

The property was first purchased in 1956 by a group of physicians who sold the hospital to the Eskaton organization in 1968. There was a merger with Alta Bates Health System of Walnut Creek. Then Mercy Healthcare Sacramento became the owner in 1991. The hospital closed in 2000.

Pratt, who met her husband at the hospital, said working there was special.

"It was a great place to work. On Friday nights, Dr. Goldberg would buy us sandwiches and bring them into the operating room," Pratt said.

Additional information can be obtained by calling (916) 482-3018.

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