Belfast City Hospital
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The Belfast City Hospital ( ga, Ospidéal Chathair Bhéal Feirste) in
Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...
,
Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
, is a 900-bed modern university teaching hospital providing local acute services and key regional specialities. Its distinctive orange tower block dominates the Belfast skyline being the third tallest storeyed building in Ireland (after Windsor House and
Obel Tower The Obel Tower is a highrise building in Belfast, Northern Ireland, located on Donegall Quay on the River Lagan beside the Lagan Weir. Measuring in height, the tower is the tallest storeyed building in Ireland, dominating the Belfast skyline. ...
, both in Belfast). It has a focus on the development of regional cancer and renal services. It is managed by
Belfast Health and Social Care Trust The Belfast Health and Social Care Trust (BHSCT) is a health organisation covering Belfast, Northern Ireland. The trust is one of five new trusts which were created on 1 April 2007 by the then Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safe ...
and is the largest general hospital in the United Kingdom. In April 2020, due to the global
coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identifie ...
, the tower block was designated one of the UK's Nightingale Hospitals.


History


Origins

The hospital has its origins in the
workhouse In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse' ...
and infirmary on the
Lisburn Road Lisburn Road is a main arterial route linking Belfast and Lisburn, Northern Ireland. The Lisburn Road is now an extension of the " Golden Mile" with many shops, boutiques, wine bars, restaurants and coffee houses. The road runs almost parallel t ...
which was designed by
Charles Lanyon Sir Charles Lanyon DL, JP (6 January 1813 – 31 May 1889) was an English architect of the 19th century. His work is most closely associated with Belfast, Northern Ireland. Biography Lanyon was born in Eastbourne, Sussex (now East Sussex) in ...
and opened on 1 January 1841. The infirmary was intended for the poor who did not have access to healthcare services provided by the government.


Workhouse Infirmary

As it became difficult to separate the sick from the destitute, the workhouse infirmary developed and soon had over 600 beds. The largest number of patients in the Belfast Union Infirmary was recorded as 4,252 on 31 January 1869.Origins of the Belfast City Hospital
Belfast City Hospital Trust


Dr. Thomas Andrews

Dr. Thomas Andrews, who qualified as a doctor in Edinburgh in 1835, was appointed by the Guardians at the age of 26 to work with the growing patient population and paid him £60 per annum. Belfast grew to a city of 350,000 people in Victorian times but the city had a problem with poor housing and sewage which led to at least four Cholera outbreaks. In January 1847 a new fever hospital with 159 beds was opened by the Board of Guardians on the site.


Fever hospital

In 1849 all fever patients were removed from the wards of the Frederick Street Hospital and transferred to the new fever hospital. This decision meant reduced bed numbers in the main Belfast General Hospital but that the amount of surgery now done there increased. The fever hospital treated outbreaks of cholera, smallpox, tuberculosis, measles, diphtheria, typhoid, scarlet fever and rabies. In addition to the "fever" patients, the infirmary also agreed to take all patients with burns, and those with incurable illnesses to the point where they were as many as 1,338 patients in 1883.


Expansion

The number of nurses grew over these years although they were often untrained. In 1867, there were fifteen paid nurses. In November 1884, Miss Ella Pirrie was appointed Superintendent and Head Nurse. She knew
Florence Nightingale Florence Nightingale (; 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was an English social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War, i ...
and in December 1884, Miss Nightingale sent a Christmas present to Miss Pirrie for the children in the Infirmary. Shortly after she was appointed, the Guardians approved a uniform for the paid nurses, and a distinctive apron for the unpaid female attendants. Under Miss Pirrie, nursing training began for the first time in Belfast and the first person, Miss Craig was sent to Dublin to sit a nursing examination. Nurse Craig was appointed Superintendent in 1892. The maternity unit was first established on the site by Dr. John McLeish in the late 19th century and then expanded to become the Jubilee Maternity Hospital, moving into new purpose-built premises on the site in 1935. The
National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...
was created in 1948, and three of the hospital's laboratory assistants were among the last 45 of the workhouse residents to serve on the hospital staff. Having been orphaned and with no record of their parents, they were known as Pauper John, Skipper and Red Hand Rufus. In the late 1960s, Dimitrios Oreopoulos, a Greek-born doctor at the hospital, arranged to have seeds from the
Tree of Hippocrates In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are u ...
in
Kos Kos or Cos (; el, Κως ) is a Greek island, part of the Dodecanese island chain in the southeastern Aegean Sea. Kos is the third largest island of the Dodecanese by area, after Rhodes and Karpathos; it has a population of 36,986 (2021 census), ...
planted on the hospital grounds to commemorate the proposed expansion of the hospital. One of the trees created from the seeds, in the grounds of Erskine House, became too large to transplant to the tower building and was left in place. The tree, which remains surrounded by modern developments and is described as "an oasis of calm and a symbol of hope for patients, staff and students", was named Northern Ireland's Tree of the Year for 2017 in a public vote. The tower block, which is 15 storeys and 76 m (250 ft) high, was designed by Louis Adair Roche and opened in January 1986. Maternity services transferred to the Royal Maternity Hospital and the Jubilee Maternity Hospital, which had been based on the Belfast City Hospital site, closed in May 2000. In February 2003 the hospital was designated as one of the nine acute hospitals in the acute hospital network of Northern Ireland on which healthcare would be focused under the government health policy 'Developing Better Services'. An oncology centre, with four wards and a total of 72 beds, opened in March 2006. The Accident and Emergency Department closed in 2011 due to financial and recruitment difficulties: the trust directed patients and ambulances to go to either the Royal Victoria Hospital or The
Mater Infirmorum Hospital The Mater Infirmorum Hospital, commonly known as The Mater, is an acute hospital in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It provides services to most of North Belfast and South Antrim, reaching as far as Glengormley, Carrickfergus and Newtownabbey It is ...
for emergency treatment instead.


Teaching

The hospital provides clinical placements for medical students from Queen's University Belfast.


COVID-19 pandemic

In April 2020, due to the global
coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identifie ...
, the tower block was designated one of the UK's Nightingale Hospitals.


References


External links

*
Inspection reports from the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority


{{authority control Belfast Health and Social Care Trust Hospitals in Belfast Skyscrapers in Northern Ireland Hospitals established in 1841 Teaching hospitals in Northern Ireland 1841 establishments in Ireland Health and Social Care (Northern Ireland) hospitals Poor law infirmaries