ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Wednesday, June 19, 1996               TAG: 9606190048
SECTION: BUSINESS                 PAGE: B-6  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER 

GILL TO END ITS ERA HOSPITAL TO BE ABSORBED

Late next week, a truck will pull up to Gill Memorial Hospital in downtown Roanoke to begin carting its equipment a half-block to Carilion Community Hospital.

The 2,400 or so operations done at Gill each year hereafter will be performed in two operating rooms at Community. Gill's future likely will be as offices, said Don Love, former administrator at Gill and now director of Community and Gill.

Gill's closing as a hospital is an efficiency decision, he said. Upon absorbing the Gill business, Community will have all of its 10 operating rooms in use.

Gill's 16 employees have been placed, Love said. "Its closing is pretty undramatic."

The downside to the closing is the building's history and sentimental value, Love said. Gill Memorial Ear, Eye, Nose & Throat Clinic, in the 707 Professional Building next door to the hospital, is not affected by the hospital's closing.

Gill was established as a for-profit facility in 1926 by the late Dr. Elbyrne G. Gill. It is believed to be the first eye, ear, nose and throat specialty hospital in the state. Gill, who had studied at hospitals in London, Paris, Berlin and Vienna, was nationally known. For years, he sponsored a gathering for physicians that drew the likes of Dr. Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin.

In 1956, Gill also founded the first eye bank in the state.

But the hospital's patient census began to decline because of the popularity of outpatient surgery, and it was sold to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital in 1982. The price tag was $1 million, but Roanoke Memorial paid only $500,000 for it. The physician owners gave Roanoke Memorial Gill stock valued at $500,000.

Only 16 of Gill's 40 beds were in use by the early 1980s. In recent years, almost none have been used, because the bulk of the surgeries have been outpatient operations.

Carilion does not intend to sell Gill, but it's unlikely it will ever again be used for patient care. The building has three stories above ground and its basement floor has been plagued by drainage problems, like a lot of other downtown buildings, Love said.

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