Sunnaas Rehabilitation Hospital is a hospital in

Nesodden Nesodden is a municipality in Akershus in Viken county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Follo. The administrative centre of the municipality is Nesoddtangen. The parish of ''Næsodden'' was established as a municipality on 1 ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

, and a

health trust Health trust or HF ( no, helseforetak) is a health Company, enterprise owned by one of the four regional health authority (Norway), regional health authorities in Norway, with responsibility for performing a geographic and/or specialist activities ...

under Helse Sør-Øst. Sunnaas is the country's largest specialized hospital in

physical medicine and rehabilitation Physical medicine and rehabilitation, also known as physiatry, is a branch of medicine that aims to enhance and restore functional ability and quality of life to people with physical impairments or disabilities. This can include conditions su ...

. Patient services include cancer services, brain injuries after accidents or disease, multiple injuries, burns, and neurology. The rehabilitation program covers primary rehabilitation, controlled return, and patient programs. The hospital has policlinics in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

and on

and runs laboratory research on the hospital's behalf. Research is a central part of the trust's work. The hospital has its own research department and uses both medical students and their own health personnel.

History

Sunnaas Rehabilitation Hospital was founded by

Rolf Rolf is a male given name and a surname. It originates in the Germanic name ''Hrolf'', itself a contraction of ''Hrodwulf'' ( Rudolf), a conjunction of the stem words ''hrod'' ("renown") + ''wulf'' ("wolf"). The Old Norse cognate is ''Hrólfr''. A ...

(1916–1979) and Birgit Sunnaas (1915–1992) in 1954.Sunnaas Rehabilitation Hospital celebrates 50 years
- Tidsskrift for Den norske lægeforening, 2004 Neither Rolf Sunnaas nor his wife had medical education of any kind. From the start, the institution had a strong working relationship with Ullevål Hospital (Oslo City Hospital) and got most of their patients from there. During the polio epidemic, with its culmination in 1951, young patients needed long treatment and rehabilitation, Sunnaas was asked to receive as many of them as his institution's capacity permitted. Sunnaas employing an experienced

neurologist Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal c ...

Nils Sponheim who thus was the first head medical doctor. He convinced the medical authorities in Oslo that the institution should be upgraded to hospital standard and deal with medical rehabilitation in cooperation with Oslo City Hospital. Over the following 20 years, Sponheim and a staff of doctors and physiotherapists made the hospital the country's foremost rehabilitation centre. The hospital continued to grow until 1975. At that point, it had 247 beds. Oslo municipality took over ownership as a gift from the Sunnaas couple in 1979, but the city authorities wanted the state to take over the financial responsibility for the hospital. This included a commitment to deal with more complicated illnesses. In 1995 Sunnaas Rehabilitation Hospital became a University hospital, and after the national hospital reforms of 2002, it became its own

in Helse Øst. The administrative director is Einar Magnus Strand. A more complete history of the hospital can be found in the book written for the hospital's 50th anniversary in 2004: Mitt Soria Moria Historien om Sunnaas sykehus by Egil Houg.

References

External links

Official homepage
{{Authority control Psychiatric hospitals in Norway Health trusts of Norway Nesodden 1954 establishments in Norway Hospitals established in 1954 Rehabilitation hospitals