Our History
In 1903 the 36-bed Winchester Memorial Hospital opened in a residential
neighborhood near downtown Winchester, Virginia. Its existence and continued
growth owed much to the vision of Dr. Hunter H. McGuire and a board of
52 community leaders, several generous donors, the fundraising persistence
of the Winchester Memorial Hospital Ladies’ Auxiliary (formed in
1902), and a hospital-based training school for nurses whose students
staffed the facility around the clock.
For the next 70+ years the hospital continued to expand its physical presence,
its medical staff of board-certified specialists and its scope of services.
By 1953, when a five-story Stewart Street addition opened, Winchester
Memorial Hospital had grown to 300 beds; by 1972, the official bed count
was up to 400. After years of deliberation, the Winchester Memorial Hospital
board decided to move the facility from its landlocked location to a 100-acre
site on Amherst Street. In 1984, the hospital was renamed Winchester Medical
Center and, with Valley Regional Enterprises and Surgi-Center of Winchester,
became the core of a new nonprofit health system.
Ground was broken in 1986 for the new 356-bed Winchester Medical Center,
an $80 million construction project that was the largest in Winchester’s
history at that time. The new facility opened in January 1990, featuring
all-private patient rooms and space to expand. Additions since that time
include two medical office buildings, a diagnostic center, employee child
care center, and a state-of-the-art Wellness & Fitness Center. In
2012 Winchester Medical Center opened the North Tower with an expanded
Emergency Department and new homes for an expanded adult Intensive Care
Unit and the region’s only Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
Today, Winchester Medical Center is an award-winning 445-bed regional referral
center offering a broad spectrum of services that includes diagnostic,
medical, surgical and rehabilitative care in both inpatient and outpatient
settings. The hospital is the only Level II Trauma Center in the region,
and is an essential resource for more than 400,000 residents in the northern
Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia and
western Maryland. A Magnet-designated hospital, Winchester Medical Center
is also an Advanced Primary Stroke Center, Chest Pain Center and Level
4 Epilepsy Center.