DIXON, CA (MPG) - Walking through the doors of Dignity Health Woodland Memorial Hospital, one senses a hospital of traditional beliefs in family, support, care, and pride. On a large wall loaded with many old photos, is a history of how the hospital began beginning in 1905 when a nurse, Kathleen McConnel, and her two sisters founded the Woodland Sanitarium in a 2-story rented house with nine beds and where the second floor served as the surgical suite.

When the McConnell sisters retired, four doctors built a new sanitarium to continue providing care to the community. The care facility’s physicians were considered innovative and were modeled after the Mayo Clinic and drew patients from outlying areas including Dixon. For several decades, this hospital was the nearest hospital for all of Yolo County and for residents of the little town of Dixon. Now they care for approximately 28,000 patients a year.

The hospital is managed by President and CEO Gena Bravo, a nurse who lives in Woodland and who has had 24 years of clinical and hospital leadership. She knows that four walls don’t make a hospital. Her concern for care stems from being raised by a disabled veteran father and by her experiences fighting breast cancer.

Woodland Healthcare Foundation Chief Philanthropy Officer Kevin Sanchez leads a team of strong colleagues who seem more like a large family committed to supporting the hospital.

Deep Roots to Dixon
Woodland Memorial Hospital is located at 1325 Cottonwood St. in Woodland and only 20 minutes from Dixon, is as dedicated as the hundred years past to delivering high quality and compassionate care. As an example, the leaders of Woodland Healthcare Foundation, including Marianne MacDonald of Dixon, continuously seek donors to purchase the latest equipment for their doctors and staff to be able to provide exceptional medical care. They now have 740 employees and 108 licensed acute care beds, 17 emergency department beds and 30 inpatient beds in the Behavioral Health unit.

“I’ve served as Board Trustee for seven years, serving as President for one year, and in 2021, started serving on the Woodland Health Foundation. Making time to give back has always been a priority for me,” said MacDonald who is in Dixon Rotary and has served for the Dixon Teen Center and is a past board member for Child Haven in Fairfield. “The initiative I’m working on is about strengthening oncology and orthopedics,” continued MacDonald who gave birth to her sons there some 50 years ago.

Across many of the doors, the bricks that encircle a garden retreat area, and rooms throughout the hospital are conspicuously inscribed letters or plaques which include names of Dixonites who have generously donated including Lowell and Muriel Morris.

Lowell was a farmer and invented the simple irrigation pipe that wound up crossing the world with sales. A friendly, hardworking man with an affection for ham radios and barometers, he and Muriel lived on Marvin Way for decades.

Muriel, who was barren, spent her life as an elementary school teacher, mostly in Dixon, so she could be with children. She passed three years before her beloved husband, Lowell, of nearly 60 years.

The Morris’s donated significantly to the radiology department and their names are immortalized above the double door waiting room now known as the Advanced Imaging Center in large scrolling silver letters.

Foundation Contributions
Government programs like Medicare and Medicaid pay hospitals less than the cost of caring for the beneficiaries and insurance companies negotiate deep discounts with hospitals. Plus, many people who are uninsured pay little or nothing at all. In the case of healthcare, revenue is mostly earned by rendering services to patients. This can leave a gap for the hospital to purchase needed diagnostic tools and medical equipment.

The Woodland Healthcare Foundation that MacDonald was asked to serve on last year, is a non-profit arm of the hospital that works to connect with patients, family, friends, and supporters who help fund those life-saving pieces of equipment through gifts of gratitude.

The legal benefit is that Woodland Healthcare Foundation creates a perpetual existence, receives limited liability protection, provides a tax-exempt status for donors benefit, and gives access to grants—all important factors in philanthropy.

Some of the gifts they have been able to secure for the hospital include expansion of the Birth Center to include eight LDR beds, reported Nova Fox, Director of the Family Birth Center. These rooms are where the mother may labor, deliver, and recover from childbirth in the same room. It’s the size of a family room and includes a couch that can double as a bed for the father or labor coach.

“The patient can walk around or take a warm shower,” said Lindsey Lyon, an RN who is also a mother of five. “The advantage of working at a small hospital is that we can adapt a lot quicker.” Lyon has worked seven years at Woodland Memorial after 12 years at North Bay Hospital.

Both Nova and Lyons demonstrate the advantages of the beds called Linet Birthing Beds. They can ‘break away’ in various pieces for the comfort of the laboring mom during her contractions. Some women find more comfort leaning forward in a squat and that can help them bear down more effectively--but that is awkward to do in a traditional hospital bed. Since squatting can enlarge the pelvic outlet diameter by almost 2.5 centimeters, giving more room for baby to rotate and move through the bony pelvis, these beds are a huge advantage to the laboring mother.

They have also purchased new delivery room lights that are softer, a blanket warmer, and a new bilirubin measuring device that doesn’t prick the baby. All these help reduce stress and discomfort for babies—and their watchful mothers. Additionally, Halo bassinets have been purchased allowing the mother who has had a cesarean section to swing the baby’s bassinet closer to her for accessing baby without pulling on sensitive stitches, Lyons demonstrated.

Other gifts included a new comprehensive screening device for hearing tests that shortens the time between appointments and diagnosis helping patients get a treatment plan and care sooner; a 3D Mammography Scanner that advances early detection of breast cancer; and more.

Braden Victor, Director of Diagnostic Imaging Services explained the Nuclear Medicine Camera, one of the purchases of equipment in one area while technician Steven Podsednik explained the CT, or Computed Tomography in another area down the hall.

Clear Mission
“We are committed to furthering the healing ministry of Jesus. We dedicate our resources to delivering compassionate, high-quality, affordable health services; serving and advocating for our sisters and brothers who are poor and disenfranchised; and partnering with others in the community to improve the quality of life,” is stated as their mission.

Capitol Project
When looking at where the hospital can continue to serve the growing population and save money in their current systems, they’ve learned that ideally, they will someday need a medical office building that places all of the out-patient services under one roof.

To learn more about supporting Woodland Memorial Hospital and Woodland Clinic, go to supportwoodlandhealthcare.org or call Sanchez at (530) 669-5682.