William Beaumont Army Medical Center







William Beaumont Army Medical Center is a Department of Defense medical facility located in El Paso, Texas. It provides comprehensive care to all beneficiaries including active duty military, their family members, and retirees. The hospital is located in the Central/Northeastern part of El Paso. At present, WBAMC is the closest hospital to the Northeast, and provides billable emergency room services for Northeast El Paso. The hospital itself is very large, and contains a rather sizable Veterans Affairs Office for former military members who are in need of medical treatment.

The William Beaumont Army Medical Center (WBAMC) is one of the many health care institutions affiliated with the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine which is also located in El Paso, Texas. WBAMC is also a participating hospital for medical residents from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU), Bethesda, MD. The current commander of WBAMC is Colonel Michael S. Heimall.

WBAMC is named for Army surgeon William Beaumont (1785-1853), the "Father of Gastric Physiology".

The buildings from the "Old Fort Bliss" to include the Fort Bliss Fort Hospital (1893) were added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 23, 1972.

History
The William Beaumont Army Medical Center (WBAMC), formerly the William Beaumont General Hospital (WBGH), is situated northwest of Fort Bliss’ main cantonment area, between Fred Wilson Road and Hayes Avenue. The hospital has its beginnings in Fort Bliss during the 1850s. After several earlier moves, Fort Bliss moved to its permanent location at Lanoria Mesa in 1893 and Building 8 (now the Fort Bliss Inspector General's Office) became the hospital. In 1916, the hospital moved to Building 1 (presently the Fort Bliss Directorate of Resource Management).

The construction of WBGH’s 48 buildings in 1920-21 signaled the beginning of Fort Bliss’s role as a major military medical center. Over the next two decades WBGH served as both Fort Bliss’s station hospital and as a general hospital for the western portion of the Army’s 8th Service Command. The hospital made of tile and stucco opened July 2, 1921, with a bed capacity for 403 patients.On staff were six medical officers, two nurses and 30 medical corpsmen.

During World War II, WBGH expanded to include 174 buildings and a crowded 4,064 beds. This included the 1,000 beds at Building 1 and another 750 beds at Biggs Air Force Base, now Biggs Army Air Field. Its capabilities also expanded as the hospital began providing specialized medical care to wounded soldiers returning from all theaters of the war. In December 1943, the plastic surgery clinic was opened.

During early 1945, approximately 6,000 inpatients were treated. In addition, a military school for medical technicians offered specialized training in surgical, dental, laboratory, X-ray, pharmacy and veterinary procedures. The hospital had a fully equipped physical therapy and occupational therapy center. Also, the artificial eye clinic was opened. Later, the hospital expanded into a neuro-psychiatric treatment and orthopedic surgery center. Following the war, WBGH continued to serve the medical needs of Fort Bliss and surrounding military installations until the Army’s needs outgrew the capacity of the hospital.

Maj. Gen. (Dr.) Charles C. Pixley, the hospital commander from September 1975 through December 1976, was promoted to lieutenant general in 1977 and became the Surgeon General of the Army.

In 1969, the Army began construction of a new, 12-story hospital to the west of the WBGH area. Completed in 1972, the new facility became known as the William Beaumont Army Medical Center. Although designed for 611 beds, by the early 1980s the hospital had a capacity of 463. The Omar N. Bradley building, an addition to the west-side of the main hospital, was opened in 1982. This facility provides an additional 200,000 sqft of clinical and administrative space. Today, the hospital has a bed capacity for more than 150 patients. However, during contingencies, the hospital can expand for 373 patients. As the Southwest’s major regional Army medical center, this modern facility now provides medical care to active and retired military personnel and their dependents in the three-state region of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

November 1995, WBAMC became one of the largest buildings in El Paso with another 254,000 sqft of floor space for the Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Center. Now, the WBAMC complex has more than one million square feet of floor space for patient care and administrative duties.