Lyndon B. Johnson Tropical Medical Center is the only hospital in American Samoa, and is located in Faga’alu, Ma’oputasi County. It has been ranked among the best hospitals in the Pacific. It is home to an emergency room and there are doctors on duty at all hours. It is a 150-bed facility. It includes TB, leprosy and obstetric units. The hospital was built in 1968 and is operating under a $50 million budget as of 2017. The executive director is Faumuina John Faumuina.
The government condemned nearly twenty acres for a new hospital in Faga’alu in the 1960s. The total estimated cost of the project was $3.5 million. The Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) Tropical Medical Center opened on June 6, 1968. The first admitted patient was a baby about to be delivered. He received the name Lyndon. Soon after its start, the hospital was acclaimed to be the best medical facility in the region. The opening staff consisted of 300 locals and a small cadre of stateside professionals.
A 1971 study found the hospital services offered at LBJ to be compared favorably with services offered in the mainland at health care facilities of comparable size. The government began sending more students for training in New Zealand and Fiji, and nurses for RN training in Hawai’i. New programs in the 1970s offered maternal and child health education, health statistics, chronic and communicable disease control, filariasis control, and mental health. In 1978, the Maternal Child Health and Crippled Children Services were introduced. Renal dialysis equipment arrived and a special unit was organized. It soon became one of the most valuable additions to local healing services as kidney diseases increased. Women’s Auxiliary later emerged and provided equipment and other forms of assistance to medical and nursing staff.