On this day in Alabama history: Children’s Hospital opens new building in Birmingham
Children’s Hospital of Alabama, 2013. (Wally Argus, Flickr)
April 30, 1961
On April 30, 1961, Children’s Hospital of Alabama moved into a new, modern four-story building on Birmingham’s Southside. The hospital had previously received federal funding through the Hill-Burton Act to launch a campaign to build the facility. The Meyer Foundation and other donors helped fund the effort.
Children’s also made an agreement in 1961 with UAB Hospital and the UAB Department of Pediatric Medicine to serve as a teaching and research hospital. The new building was expanded several times over the years until in 1989, it housed 190 patient beds.
The hospital continued to grow. In March 2008, plans were announced to build a facility one block north of the existing hospital, incorporating medical efforts in the older buildings, along with Children’s Harbor. The new hospital was dedicated on June 5, 2012.
When it was founded on June 17, 1911, Holy Innocents Hospital was sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama. It was renamed Children’s Hospital in 1914 when the facility’s directors voted to leave the patronage of the Episcopal Diocese.
Today, Children’s of Alabama is one of the 10 busiest pediatric medical centers in the nation and features Alabama’s only level 1 trauma center for pediatric patients.
Read more at Bhamwiki.
For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.
