Noble Hospital Celebrates National Hospital Week

WESTFIELD — Noble Hospital is celebrating National Hospital Week this week, May 11-15, with special employee events. This year’s theme is “Where Miracles Happen Every Day.”

A clothing drive for Noble’s Fowler Unit patients will be collected in the Café all week. Bring in gently used sweatpants and shirts and new underwear for men and women (sizes L, XL, and 2XL appreciated). Meanwhile, today, employees with five to 40 years of service are being honored at a luncheon. Wednesday includes an employee cookout, and an ice-cream social will be held on Friday. Other employee activities include chair massages, games, and a minute-to-win-it competition between departments.

National Hospital Day was originally conceived by a Chicago magazine editor as a public healthcare event that encouraged the public to trust in the city’s hospitals after the Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918, which killed more than 600,000 Americans. The event expanded to an entire week in 1953, and today every state celebrates National Hospital Week, which is sponsored by the American Hospital Assoc. This annual celebration serves as a reminder that hospitals are foundations of the communities that built them and nurture them, and that hospitals serve people in every community from all walks of life.