Healers and Hellraisers

In March of 1860, before Denver even had a city government, two politicians faced off in a duel on the bank of Cherry Creek following a disagreement apparently related to slavery. When the roar of the gunfire subsided, acting territorial governor Lucien Bliss was standing and Joseph Stone, a physician, gold digger, legislator and judge, was writhing in agony from a pistol ball that had perforated his body. Stone was eventually taken to City Hospital, which had opened in the summer of 1860 near the intersection of what would become Sixteenth and Wazee streets. That small frontier hospital, which provided medical care to the injured and indigent and was largely supported by charitable contributions, is considered the earliest precursor to Denver Health. In 2010, with the hospital entering its 150th year, Denver Health officials were eager to have their institution s story -- with all its true grit and drama-- shared with a wider audience. So they turned to Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and author Eileen Welsome. Healers and Hellraisers is not a corporate history, but an absorbing tale that recounts the hospital s near-death experiences, its numerous rebirths, and the internal struggles that helped shaped it into the powerhouse that it is today. Through epidemics and pandemics, economic recessions and depressions, extraordinary technological and medical changes, Denver Health survived. Today it s being viewed as a national model for how healthcare in America should be delivered and its longtime chief executive officer, Dr. Patricia Gabow, is often invited to testify as an expert witness on Capitol Hill. Denver Health provides millions of dollars in uncompensated care. Yet, it has one of the highest survival rates of any hospital in the country, one of the lowest infection rates, and its medical staff are recognized as national experts in their respective fields. Over the decades, it s learned to do more with less, embracing technological change and medical innovations. In 2011, it was awarded the prestigious Shingo prize for its efforts to cut waste and become more efficient. Beginning with that bloody duel on the eve of the Civil War, Healers and Hellraisers recounts the colorful history of Colorado s oldest public hospital and includes many stories and archival photographs that have never before been shared with the public. It s a history that parallels Denver s own rough-and-tumble saga and begins at a time when cattle and pigs roamed the streets, manure and bones piled up on empty lots, and foul-smelling outhouses threatened the city s drinking water. Typhoid epidemics regularly swept through Denver. Smallpox simmered. Sexually transmitted diseases exploded in the brothels and cribs of Denver s red-light district. And thousands of tuberculosis sufferers roamed the city s streets, hoping that Colorado s fresh air and sun would cure them. A few TB sufferers were cured, including a genial carpet seller named Robert Speer who went on to become one of Denver s most important mayors and whose influence can still be seen in the sweeping lines of Civic Plaza and the city s tree-lined boulevards and parks. In the book, you will learn about the doctors who shepherded the hospital through those epidemics and administrators who sought to insulate and protect it from the corroding influence of local and state politics. The book also contains other fascinating information A 360-acre poor farm in Adams County that was part of the county hospital The city-owned Sand Creek Smallpox Hospital A bomb that detonated in June 1969 in the hospital s Eastside Health Center Located on the west side of Speer Boulevard and sandwiched between Sixth and Eighth Avenues, Denver Health s medical staff and employees today carry on in the spirit of that frontier hospital.