UH Parma Medical Center Celebrates 60 Years As A Cornerstone Of The Community

UH Parma Medical Center opened as a community hospital in 1961, with six stories and 200 beds. Now part of the University Hospitals health system, the hospital has grown to 321 beds, and has an outpatient center and four medical office buildings. A $27.5 million expansion of Surgical Services is expected to be completed this year.

View Image Gallery

Sixty years after opening as a 200-bed, six-story hospital on Ridge Road, University Hospitals Parma Medical Center is celebrating its anniversary in 2021 by concluding its largest construction project in the main hospital building in three decades. The Surgical Services renovation and expansion will be completed this year, a $27.5 million project that underscores UH Parma’s commitment to remaining a cornerstone of the community. Its addition has changed the face of the hospital with a new modern section.

The hospital opened as Parma Community General Hospital on August 2, 1961, initiated by leaders in its six founding communities of Parma, Parma Heights, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights, Seven Hills and North Royalton. “Parma Hospital was conceptualized in the late 1950s because the growing southwestern suburbs needed accessible, convenient and reliable medical care,” states the 1986 annual report marking the hospital’s 25th anniversary. “Through careful nurturing… it developed into the institution we know today.”

By becoming part of the University Hospitals health system in 2014, this community hospital’s services and quality initiatives have only been further enhanced. UH Parma recently became a Level III Trauma Center and is also a Primary Stroke Center. Patients travel from beyond the hospital’s primary service area for services like hyperbaric oxygen therapy at the Wound Center, sleep studies at the Sleep Center, and weight loss expertise from the Bariatric Surgery, Metabolic & Nutrition Center. UH Parma also was among the busiest in the 23-hospital UH system (which includes five joint-venture hospitals) in caring for COVID-19 patients throughout the pandemic.

UH Parma is licensed for 321 patients. The hospital campus is comprised of a nine-story main hospital, four medical office buildings and an outpatient center. “If you have the services the community needs, your patient base will keep expanding,” says Robert George, MD, one of the first internal medicine physicians on the original medical staff. He recalls the excitement buzzing around the planning and construction of the hospital on Ridge Road that would become a cornerstone of the community. “It’s been the honor of my life to have been a member of the founding medical staff and part of this hospital’s history,” adds Dr. George, who with his late wife, Christine, were active philanthropists for the Parma Hospital Health Care Foundation. They supported many initiatives at the hospital, with their largest gift benefiting nursing education.

To support the continued work of the UH Parma to foster the health and wellness of the community, go to www.UHgiving.org/Parma.