Hospital Board Approves Name Change For Thomason

By ABC-7 Reporter/Anchor Celina Avila

EL PASO, Texas — After more than 45 years, El Paso’s county hospital is changing its name. Thomason General Hospital will now be known as the University Medical Center of El Paso.

Hospital officials have been working on this for over a year and considered more than 20 names. In a unanimous decision, board members settled on the University Medical Center of El Paso.

Officials said the change was needed to identify the more than 40-acre campus.

“We believe this positions us to continue the progress that we’ve made in recent years… It positions us to be able to attract more physicians to our community. More healthcare providers, more nurses. Attract federal research dollars to this campus,” said hospital spokeswoman Margaret Althoff-Olivas.

The hospital first started in an old two-story building in Smeltertown, where Paisano Street is now. When it moved in 1915 to Alameda, its current location, it was known as El Paso General Hospital.

In 1963 a brand new version was named the R.E. Thomason General Hospital.

Robert E. Thomason was a distinguished El Pasoan who served not only as the city’s mayor but also state representative, U.S. Congressman and U.S. District court judge.

Some think the name change is disrespectful. “They’re not honoring R.E. Thomason. I think that’s what they meant to do,” one El Pasoan said.

Hospital officials said Thomason will still be honored with the hospital building named as Thomason Tower and a museum-style exhibit of his accomplishments, but officials say the new name reflects more what it has become.

The cost of the name change is going to be about $25,000 and will fall under the hospital’s marketing budget, officials said.

The new signs are expected by this summer, right as the first new medical class begins.