Page 134 - Historical Study of Yerba Buena Island, Treasure Island and Their Buildings

everything else on the island, expanded rapidly due to necessity. Soon, there were sixty dentists;
and eventually, the medical division was maintaining dispensaries at additional locations
including: Treasure Island (2 each), Yerba Buena Island, San Francisco ( on Market Street), and
the "pre-embarkation" barracks (refer to Section 2.3 .1.6).

Even with all the expansion, the existing dispensary system still could not meet the ever
increasing needs of the military personnel. A new hospital, commissioned on April 4, 1942,
received its first patient on July 15, 1942. By September 1942, the hospital had two hundred
sixty seven patients, but, lacked proper accomodations for them. The hospital, built with a
capacity of five hundred beds, was woefully inadequate for dealing with the demand. Patient
admissions were limited to acute medical or surgical cases. The overflow of convalescing
patients were taken to other nearby hospitals. By December 1942, eight months after
commissioning, the hospital had cared for more than twenty five hundred patients and the load
was still increasing. Through 1943, the hospital, with a staff of approximately sixty officers and
three hundred enlisted corpsmen, admitted over ten thousand patients for medical care.
A Physio-Therapy Department was placed in full operation in March 1943; and in September of
that same year, the Epidemiology Department was added to list of specialty departments at the
hospital.

All wounded servicemen flown in by plane from Fleet hospitals in the South and Central Pacific
were routed to Treasure Island for care. None were turned away. To help handle the load, a new
structure was built to house the Clinical Laboratory, Epidemiological Unit, Blood Bank, and
School of Tropical Medicine. The Blood Bank not only handled aH transfusions for the Treasure
Island Hospital, but furnished whole blood when and where needed, as well as plasma to the
ships deployed to the war zones. To ensure a good supply of plasma, the ships would send their
crews to donate blood which was then converted to plasma and returned to the ship. Overall, the
response to the need for blood was excellent.
'
The School of Tropical Medicine, located in the entire west wing of the new building, was
established for the purpose of training Medical Officers and Corpsmen in the diagnosis,
treatment, prevention, and control of diseases, as well as training in the conditions facing them
during the island-hopping war. For officers, the course lasted five weeks. It was, however, a ten
week course for the enlisted men. The primary teaching material available for laboratory
training and examination was blood smears taken from malaria victims.

The year 1944 became the busiest in the history of the hospital. Patient admissions soared over
seventeen thousand five hundred, while hospital staffing remained the same as that of 1942. In
order to bolster the hospital's small staff, the district Medical Officer assigned Medical Officers
and Corpsmen to the hospital on a temporary duty basis from those units being assembled and/or
awaiting transportation to oversea assignments. This helped to reduce the working load of the
hospital staff.

In 1945, WW II came to an end; but not before another ten thousand patients had passed through
the doors of the hospital for admission. Of these patients, one hundred three repatriates, civilians
returned from Japanese prison camps in the Philippines, were quartered (housed) at the hospital
and given necessary treatment, physical check-ups, and Red Cross assistance pending the return
to their homes.

2-30 Historical Study ofYerba Buena Island, September!, 1995
Treasure Island, and their Buildings