WASHINGTON (March 17, 2009)—Funds from the $787 billion federal stimulus package will pay for construction of a new hospital at Fort Hood to replace the Vietnam War-era Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center, Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, said Tuesday evening.

“I have heard from reliable sources that the Department of Defense intends to announce as early as this week that Ft. Hood will receive military construction funding to replace the aging Darnall Army Medical Center,” Edwards said.

“Darnall hospital is 42 years old, 33% undersized and cannot be adequately renovated to meet its medical mission,” he said.

Edwards, who serves as chairman of the House Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee, said he authored $1.3 billion in the stimulus package for modernization of military hospitals.

He said Tuesday “a significant part of those funds will be used to build the new hospital at Fort Hood.”

No military installation in America has sent more troops to Iraq than Ft. Hood, and I am deeply grateful that the Department of Defense recognizes Ft. Hood soldiers and their families deserve the improved medical care that will result from a new, modern hospital,” Edwards said.

The existing hospital was built in 1965 at a cost of $6 million.

It underwent a major $49.7 million expansion that started in 1979 and wasn’t completed until 1984.

The hospital now serves more than 42,000 active duty troops and more than 145,000 family members and retirees within a 40-mile radius of the post.

Since early 2003, more than 2,200 soldiers who were wounded or fell ill in Iraq and Afghanistan have been treated at Darnall, which Fort Hood says is the largest number of any Army hospital in the U.S. and the third highest in the country behind only Walter Reed and Eisenhower Medical Centers.

The hospital now has more than 2,400 staff members.

In early 2006, the Army announced that Fort Hood’s master plan included a 40-acre site near Clear Creek for a new hospital, but said development plans were years in the future.