A Century of Health
It’s difficult to imagine rural Abbeville County in the early 20th century, but that’s when the history of its long-running hospital, Abbeville Area Medical Center, began.
In April of 1919, a group of local men purchased the Ferguson-Williams College on Ellis Avenue in downtown Abbeville with the intention of turning it over to the County for use as a hospital. Abbeville County Memorial Hospital was established the following month on May 12, 1919, just over a hundred years ago today.
Named in honor of the soldiers from the community who fought in World War I, the building would serve as a center of healthcare services for the greater Abbeville area for over forty years and still stands today as the Ferguson-Williams Apartment. A new facility was constructed In the 1960s as the hospital and its services expanded, something which occurred again in the mid-2000s.
“Hospitals, both big and small, face many challenges in today’s healthcare environment. With so many small hospitals closing across the Country and in South Carolina that are critical to the health of the rural communities they serve, I am very proud that Abbeville Area Medical Center has been able to stand the test of time,” stated Howard “Dean” Turner, CEO of the hospital. “We would like to think that the men whose vision it was to establish a hospital in our community in 1919 would be proud of the advances we have made over the last century to keep their dream alive.”
The hospital currently offers a full range of services including a 24-hour emergency department, an inpatient and outpatient surgery center, radiology services including MRI, wellness center, diabetes education, wound care center, sleep lab, laboratory, physical, speech and occupational therapy, swing bed inpatient rehabilitation, Direct Health-Industrial Medicine, behavioral health and home health care. For more information about Abbeville Area Medical Center, please call, visit AbbevilleAreaMC.com.