The Decades of Union Hospital: Part 3

1980’s: An employee day-care facility opened. State licensed, it continues to give children an optimal learning environment. In 1989, the Hux Cancer Center, Transitional Care Unit, Sports Medicine, and Outpatient Physical Therapy Centers opened. These new centers reflected the medial needs of the population. Cancer and sports medicine were quickly taking the medical spotlight that once belonged to polio and influenza.

1990’s: The hospital had developed into the largest medical center between Indianapolis and St. Louis. Their regional referral center served a fifteen-county area in Indiana and Illinois. Union Hospital was serving 11,000 inpatients per year and more than 150,000 outpatients.

2000 - PRESENT: In 2004, Union kept with Terre Haute tradition. The hospital sanctioned the destruction of its two oldest buildings, constructed in 1909 and 1922. Three years later, Union began a 178 million dollar expansion and renovation project. A five-story, 500,000 square foot building was added, which connected to the original hospital. This project was one of the most extensive construction projects in Terre Haute’s history. Completed in early 2010, the new hospital was nicknamed the “airport terminal” for medical care. Its title referrers to its immense size and the very modern window design adorning the front of the building.

In a little over 100 years, Union Hospital has grown from a simple twenty-bed sanitarium with seven doctors to a colossal 340 bed complex with nearly 3,000 employees. One can only imagine the immense changes that will occur in the next one hundred years.