From staff reports
On May 1, 1944, Beaufort Memorial Hospital (BMH) opened its doors as a one-story brick building with just 25 beds and four physicians. Now, as the hospital celebrates its 80th anniversary, it spans 15 facilities from the city of Beaufort to Hilton Head Island, employs more than 1,800 providers and team members, and has more than 600,000 patient encounters per year.
“The evolution of Beaufort Memorial from a small, local hospital into a healthcare system that provides advanced levels of care to three counties is remarkable,” BMH President and CEO Russell Baxley said. “I couldn’t be more proud of this hospital’s 80-year history, or more excited for the progress we have in store.”
Beaufort Memorial’s story began in 1933 when Kate Gleason bequeathed a plot of land along the Beaufort River to the people of Beaufort County to build a hospital. In the eight decades since, the hospital has embarked on a series of expansions to serve the healthcare needs of the area’s surging population.
In the early 1960s, it built a surgical unit and a second story atop the original building to accommodate more patient beds. Then, in the 1980s and 1990s, the hospital added imaging services, a birthing center, a modern emergency room and the five-story patient tower that is visible from downtown Beaufort.
By the time the tower was completed in 1992, Beaufort Memorial had become the largest hospital between Savannah and Charleston. But the population of Beaufort County, which had quadrupled since 1933, was set to swell further.
“Our mission was and is to enhance the quality of life for the residents in the Lowcountry,” said Baxley, who came to the hospital in 2016. “And fulfilling that mission in a place that attracts so many new residents has required that we are persistent in creating new and innovative ways to provide high-quality care.”
By the late 1990s, the hospital’s leadership looked to establish a footprint beyond the hospital’s main campus. The first was HealthLink on Lady’s Island, followed by Lowcountry Medical Group in Port Royal, then Bluffton Medical Services in Westbury Park, which opened in June 2006.
But the last five years, under Baxley’s leadership, have seen the most dramatic developments.
Since 2019, the hospital launched the region’s first telemedicine service, BMH Care Anywhere; built a 70,000-square-foot medical office building in Okatie; opened the May River Medical Pavilion in Bluffton; acquired an outpatient imaging center on Hilton Head Island; and renovated the cardiac catheterization lab. Plans are also in the works to build a new, micro hospital in Bluffton.
Last fall, the hospital began a multi-million-dollar renovation and expansion of its Surgical Pavilion in Beaufort. The project includes the addition of two state-of-the-art surgical suites, as well as expansion of existing suites to make space for the latest da Vinci XI Surgical System, a second cutting-edge Mako SmartRobotics™ Surgery System, and the hospital’s first DePuy VELYS™ Robotic-Assisted
System for joint replacement. The Mako and DePuy VELYS technology allows orthopedic surgeons to create surgical plans unique to patient anatomy, and use a robotic arm to implant the components with unmatched precision.
Funding for this costly but essential improvement in the hospital’s surgical capabilities was significantly augmented by $4.3 million in donations raised by the Beaufort Memorial Foundation, which is also celebrating and anniversary — its 40th — this year. The Foundation has raised a total of $50 million for essential projects like this since its inception in 1984.
“Beaufort County Memorial Hospital was established to ensure Beaufort County residents have access to medical care,” said Associate Vice President and Chief Development Officer Kimberly Yawn. “And the Beaufort Memorial Hospital Foundation was created to expand and improve services for generations to come.”
One of the largest on-campus projects in recent years, the surgical pavilion expansion is also the one most closely tied to the original, 1940s structure. As demolition began, construction workers uncovered an original exterior wall of the hospital with a fully intact window.
“It was extraordinary to see and touch a part of something that has benefited generations of people and that remains intact today,” Baxley said. “It underscored the permanent importance of the mission and vision of Beaufort Memorial.”
