Southeast Missouri Hospital's 80 years of work recognized

Over 80 years, Southeast Missouri Hospital has grown from a dream of leaders from communities across the region to a major health institution where 1,300 babies are born annually and 11,000 patients receive care.

The Southeast Missouri Hospital Association celebrated that achievement Thursday as hundreds of association members and guests gathered to honor hospital employees and volunteers at the Show Me Center. The audience also heard a leading authority on heart health describe the factors that lead to cardiac disease and the best methods to prevent it.

The hospital has grown rapidly in recent years, growing to become one of the top two employers in the county. Since 1991, it has added 396,000 square feet of new treatment space, medical office buildings and fitness centers, president and chief executive officer Jim Wente said.

But predicting future growth, either over the coming decades or even on a shorter time frame, is difficult, Wente said.

The hospital is completing a new medical office building on the west side of Cape Girardeau, to supplement its main campus on Broadway near Capaha Park.

"The west campus is there for development for many years going forward," he said. "But it is hard for me to plan two or three years ahead, much less 80."

Additional facilities and services will be geared to the growth of the area and the demands of technology, Wente said. "I just think the future is a bright place to be."

But the focus of Thursday's event wasn't the hospital's plan for growth but to focus on health and encouraging people to take steps to maintain their bodies, he said.

To help make that point, the evening's speaker was Joseph Piscatella, author of 10 books focusing on heart health. His first book, "Don't Eat Your Heart Out," was published in 1983, six years after he had bypass surgery at age 32 and was told by his cardiologist he was unlikely to reach 40. His latest book, "The Road to Heart Health Runs Through the Kitchen," continues his crusade against cholesterol.

Most people know a diet of red meat, whole milk and butter is bad, Piscatella said. But they still eat cheesecake, croissants, chicken nuggets and fried fish. Personal choices about exercise, diet, tobacco and stress are the key to avoiding cardiovascular diseases that kill one out of every two Americans.

Lifestyle choices, Piscatella said, "can put us on the road to health or [they] can put us on the road to disaster."

In addition to presenting a motivational speaker, the evening saw the installation of new association officers — James Rust of RM Coco will serve another term as association president and Kevin Ford was elected as a new trustee.

At the banquet, the hospital recognized four winners of its major in-house prize, the O.D. Niswonger Spirit of Southeast Award. The winners included Ellyn Barnicle, administrative secretary in Nursing Administration; Debbie Hayden, an occupational therapist at HealthPoint Rehab in Cape Girardeau; Joni Adams Bliss, supervisor of Web tools; and George Henry from Food Service.

Also, as part of the evening, Wente presented $17,000 to the Cape Girardeau Parks Development Foundation for construction of a large lighted shelter on a concrete pad with picnic tables.

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126