Longtime health care administrator Ogren dies at 71

Thursday, Feb. 11, 1999 | 11:17 a.m.

The date of Nov. 9, 1978, was a major turning point in the life of longtime Nevada hospital administrator Carroll Ogren.

It was the day that the Washoe Medical Center board, with great reluctance, fired him after 21 years at the hospital -- 14 as its administrator.

The reason, as Ogren outlined in his recently published memoir "People Make The Hospital; The History of Washoe Medical Center" was: "My long battle with alcohol addiction (that) had left them with no other choice."

After three years of treatments, a sober Ogren came to Las Vegas as administrator of the Jean Hanna Clark Rehabilitation Center and, during 11 years there, revolutionized the state's health care treatment for injured workers.

Carroll W. Ogren, who founded the Nevada Hospital Association and became its first president during a government service career that spanned 50 years, died Tuesday at Summerlin Hospital Medical Center. He was 71.

Services for Ogren, who lived in Reno 24 years and Las Vegas 18 years, will be 11 a.m. Saturday at Palm Mortuary-Eastern.

Sober for nearly 20 years, Ogren spoke publicly about his battle against alcoholism. His identical twin brother, Stuart Ogren of Williamsburg, Va., once asked Carroll to speak about his courageous struggle before a civic group in Williamsburg, where Carroll's moving speech left Stuart and many others in tears.

"My brother was mild-mannered and always a gentleman," Stuart said. "And he had a great sense of humor."

Stuart recalled a visit he made to the Washoe hospital, where Carroll asked him to sit at his desk because an irate doctor was about to come in. After Carroll slipped out, the doctor barged into the office and ranted at Stuart for several minutes before Carroll casually strolled back in.

Elinor Webster, Carroll's longtime secretary at Jean Hanna Clark, now the JHC Health Center, said Ogren was witty and "had high standards. He worked hard to make the center turn a profit."

Vera Smith-Kamna, current administrator at JHC, said Ogren instituted many programs that are still in use today.

"He made Jean Hanna Clark a comprehensive rehabilitation center for physical and psychological therapy," she said.

Ogren's wife remembered how he faced the challenges of working in a state system that did not provide him the tools to easily make the center as successful as it became.

"They (the state) told him to do the job, then tied both of his hands," Patti Ogren said. "Still, the facility made money because he was a great motivator of his employees."

Born March 22, 1927, in Minneapolis, served in the Navy near the end of World War II and during the Korean War.

He earned a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Minnesota in 1952 and a master's in hospital administration from Washington University in St. Louis in 1957, the year he moved to Reno to become an administration resident at Washoe Medical Center.

In 1964 Ogren became the hospital's administrator and later had a hand in helping to start the University of Nevada School of Medicine. But his illness took its toll by 1978 and Ogren's world came crashing down around him.

"As I departed the hospital that night, I thought that it would have been far more humane for them to take me to the back parking lot and put a bullet through my heart," Ogren wrote in "People Make The Hospital" (Greasewood Press, Reno) with his longtime friend Anton P. Sohn.

"Washoe Medical Center had given me a good life; alcohol had consumed it."

After nearly three years of attending Alcoholics Anonymous, which Ogren credited in his book with helping him "fend off my demon," he was hired by the Jean Hanna Clark board on Aug. 17, 1981. Ogren retired on Oct. 30, 1992.

His concern for America's future health care was evident to the end, as he wrote in his book: "It appears that with a growing apathy and the cry for entitlements ... we will someday, in the not distant future, see nationalism of our total health care industry."

In addition to his wife and brother, Ogren is survived by another brother, John Ogren of Minneapolis; a son Martin Hoganson of Sacramento; a niece, Judith Seguin of Minneapolis; and two nephews, Richard Ogren and Douglas Ogren, both of Minneapolis. He was preceded in death by a brother, Robert Ogren.

Donations:To the Carroll Ogren Memorial Fund, c/o Washoe Medical Center, Reno, NV 89502.