User:Eli185/Hietzing hospital

Die Klinik Hietzing (previously known as: Kaiser-Jubiläums-Spital, or Krankenhaus Lainz und Krankenhaus Hietzing) is one of the largest hospitals in Vienna. Managed by the Vienna Health Association, it was built between 1908 and 1913 under the Christian Socialist mayor Karl Lueger according to the plans of the architect Johann Nepomuk Scheiringer.

The "Lainz" hospital complex
The Lainzer Krankenhaus, or "Lainz" for short was built according to the period's cutting edge health theory. It consisted of about ten specialized pavilions in a ten hectar park southwest of Vienna in the Hietzing district.

it was next to elder care institution "Versorgungsheim Lainz" built in 1902-1904 with two dozen pavilions under the name "Geriatriezentrum am Wienerwald" (Geriatric Center at the Vienna Woods). The Homeland Law stipulated that, after ten years of residence in Vienna, everyone had the right to poor relief or old-age care. These two large institutes enhanced the Vienna's worldwide reputation in medicine.

History
In 1907, on the 60th anniversary of the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph, the City of Vienna decided to build its first hospital "voluntarily and without recognition of any legal obligation ... with the intention of relieving Vienna's hospital shortage as extensively and as quickly as possible".

The new hospital was to be equipped with "state-of-the-art science and technology" and to train doctors. Until 1918 it was called "Kaiser-Jubiläums-Spital". After that it was given the simpler name "Krankenhaus Lainz".

Because of a nursing scandal in the neighboring geriatric center, it was renamed Krankenhaus Hietzing (around 2000). In 2020, the hospital was renamed Klinik Hietzing as part of the standardization of the naming of municipal hospitals.

Healthcare situation 1907–1918
The decision of the Vienna City Council on July 14, 1907, to build a hospital with 1,000 beds and to administer it itself was a milestone in medical care for the Viennese population. Until then, in addition to the university hospitals, practically only religious and private hospitals had been available to the inhabitants. Only in retrospect can the significance of this communal upheaval be assessed, which also earned much criticism. The (predominantly bourgeois) deputies overrode all reservations and created an institution for the benefit of the sick, in which "science will celebrate its triumphs for the salvation of mankind, free and independent of the pernicious clique system" (Karl Lueger at the laying of the foundation stone in 1908). The decision was also of a party and socio-political nature: in 1907 Austria introduced universal suffrage, which greatly increased the expectation of public assistance for everyone. When the first patients were admitted in February 1913, this not only eased the shortage of beds, with the number of hospital beds rising from 7,100 to 8,100, but also enabled new approaches to medical care to be taken.

When it opened, the hospital had eight departments: two medical, one surgical, and one each for urology, skin and sexually transmitted diseases, gynecology and obstetrics, and eye and ENT diseases. In addition, there was an X-ray institute and one each for physical therapy, for pathology and for serodiagnostics. The newly appointed primary physicians were soon among the world's leading medical experts.

Far-sighted was the planning of the urology department. The Lainz department was one of the few independent institutes of its kind. Surgery of the urinary tract was not developed until 1897 in Trieste, and the need in Vienna was estimated at 100 beds. Almost all of Austria's later primary urological physicians came from this department.

Further expansion after 1918
Although the monarchy collapsed in 1918 and Vienna's population declined in numbers, the Lainzer Spital was further expanded in the 1920s. According to the will of the now Social Democratic city government, it was to become a kind of social "counter-university" and was given elaborate treatment apparatus and additional hospital outpatient departments for emergencies.

It received its most important enlargement in 1930/31 under City Councilor Julius Tandler, the great reformer of Vienna's health care system. Three new specialized departments (metabolic diseases, tuberculosis and lung diseases) and a department for radiation therapy greatly expanded the possibilities (see also Hilda Fonovits). The metabolic department was the only one in Austria to also deal with nutritional disorders and healing methods of dietetics. The TBC and lung pavilions are still exemplary today. Decided in March 1929, the construction was started on May 12 and opened with 320 beds already on November 15, 1930 - and this in the middle of the economic crisis. The tuberculosis pavilion, which was urgently needed at the time, later became the heart-lung center.

The special department for radiation therapy was established in 1931 on the model of the Radium Institute in Stockholm. Vienna was the third city in the world to purchase radium for the irradiation of cancer patients - a sensation at the time. The cost of the first 5,000 milligrams of radium was high, and Vienna was the talk of the town. The tradition started then continued in 1959 with the first so-called cobalt gun (cobalt-60 irradiation) and the first betatron facility.

Nazi era 1938-1945
After Austria's Anschluss or merging with Nazi Germany, Jewish doctors and the hospital director were fired. Jewish medical staff was persecuted and their history erased.

During the Second World War, three pavilions of the neighboring nursing home (today Geriatriezentrum Am Wienerwald) were taken over by Lainzer Krankenhaus. New buildings were also added after 1945, all buildings were modernized and the former large wards were converted into small units of one, two or four beds.

As of January 1, 2006, the Rosenhügel Neurological Center was merged with the Lainz Hospital. Of the approximately 215,000 square meters of the park, only a few percent have been built up to date. Again and again, plans emerge to reallocate it for residential buildings and budget renovation. Since 2020, the hospital has been operating under the name Klinik Hietzing.

Trinity Chapel
The Holy Trinity Chapel is a Roman Catholic hospital chapel located on the mezzanine floor of Pavilion IV designed by architect Johann Nepomuk Scheiringer. It was built as a rectangular hall with barrel vault and polygonal choir and inset organ loft. The hall is lit on both sides by three rectangular windows surmounted by semi-circular arches. The choir is separated by a bronze lattice communion bench. Erected figures Sacred Heart of Jesus by Florian Josephu-Drouot and Sacred Heart of Mary by Anton Endstorfer. The triptych Heilkunst from 1913 is by Hans Zatzka. Glazed Stations of the Cross reliefs by Heinrich Epler from 1896 are embedded in the side walls. The Roland Fountain was erected in the course of the construction of the hospital in the center of the large garden courtyard, respectively in the main axis of the hospital, and was unveiled around 1913. On a three-tiered pedestal, where two steps are formed as fountain basins, stands a monumental statue of Roland, which was created by the academic sculptor Josef Heu and allegedly holds the features of the Viennese mayor Karl Lueger.

Literature

 * DEHIO-Handbuch: Die Kunstdenkmäler Österreichs. Wien X. bis XIX. und XXI. bis XXIII. Bezirk XIII. Monumentalbauten. Lainzer Krankenhaus. Bundesdenkmalamt (Hrsg.), Verlag Anton Schroll & Co, Wien 1996, ISBN 3-7031-0693-X, S. 181–183.
 * Gedenkbuch: Kaiser-Jubiläums-Spital der Gemeinde Wien; Gerlach & Wiedling Buch- und Kunstverlag, Wien 1913.

Weblinks

 * Homepage der Klinik Hietzing
 * Baugeschichte des Krankenhauses
 * Das älteste Spital der Stadt Wien auf der Ärztewoche
 * Lainzer Krankenhaus, TBC-Pavillon. In: dasrotewien.at – Weblexikon der Wiener Sozialdemokratie. SPÖ Wien (Hrsg.)

Einzelnachweise
48.16916666666716.277777777778Koordinaten: 48° 10′ 9″ N, 16° 16′ 40″ O