Q: When was the Veterans Administration Hospital on Clairmont Road built?
—Donna Gensler, Atlanta
A: The Atlanta VA Medical Center's main building doesn't look much different now than when it opened in 1966, but it was more easily noticed at that time.
The imposing gray building at 1670 Clairmont Road towered above the surrounding area, which was green fields and dense woods 50 years ago. None of the apartment buildings or businesses that now fill that stretch of Clairmont can be seen on a 1960s-era postcard of the new hospital at www.atlantatimemachine.com.
The only other noticeable landmarks were a tip of Candler Lake and part of South Fork Peachtree Creek, which are still there.
Apartments, commercial buildings, parking lots and decks now line the streets around the hospital, which was part of a construction boom for the VA in 1966. Several other VA hospitals across the country were built or renovated that year at a cost of $121 million, according to VA Administrator W.J. Driver’s report to Congress in early 1967.
The price tag for Atlanta’s VA hospital was $12.9 million.
The facility had 587 beds, outpatient services were rolled into the duties of the new hospital and approximately 100 to 125 local folks were hired to supplement the additional staff.
The Atlanta hospital included an innovation that Driver recorded in his report to Congress, a change that allowed nurses to focus more on patient care and less on logistics.
The processing and distribution of medical supplies was shifted to supply personnel.
“The experience gained at this hospital will be used to plan realignment of this function to an organizational element other than nursing, thereby freeing trained nursing personnel of responsibility for performing duties which do not require nursing skills,” Driver wrote.
The new hospital filled a need in the Atlanta area.
There were 440,000 veterans in the hospital’s service area in the mid-1960s, including 373,000 wartime vets – 262,000 who served in World War II, 81,000 who served in Korea and even 30,000 from World War I.
The Atlanta VA Medical Center has grown to include 14 care sites, with 445 inpatient beds. There’s a 120-bed community living center, a 40-bed domiciliary and a 12-bed residential treatment program.
The VA will commemorate the 50th anniversary of Atlanta’s VA hospital in 2016, spokeswoman Susan Hansen said, but the plans are in the preliminary stage.
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