The Rotunda Hospital in 1780Back of the hospital, showing tennis courts. ca. 1890sSign on the Rotunda hospital, with a neon light image of a stork
The hospital was founded by Bartholomew Mosse, a surgeon and midwife who was appalled at the conditions that pregnant women had to endure, in George's Lane in March 1745.[4] It was granted by royal charter on 2 December 1756 by King George II.[5]Lying-in is an archaic term for childbirth (referring to the month-long bed rest prescribed for postpartum confinement).[6] The venture was very successful and Mosse raised money through concerts, exhibitions and even a lottery to establish larger premises.[7]
The hospital moved to its current premises in 1757, designed by Richard Cassels,[8] where it became known as "The New Lying-In Hospital".[9] The Church of Ireland Chapel was opened in 1762.[10] Open to the public, it provided a healthy income to the hospital annually, Dr. Mosse successfully encouraging wealthy Protestant Dubliners to attend service there.[11][12]
Records indicate that around 1781, "when the hospital was imperfectly ventilated, every sixth child died within nine days after birth, of convulsive disease; and that after means of thorough ventilation had been adopted, the mortality of infants, within the same, in five succeeding years, was reduced to one in twenty".[13] This issue was not limited to the Lying-In-Hospital. In that era, ventilation improvement was a general issue in patient care,[14] along with other issues of sanitation and hygiene, and the conditions in which surgeons such as Robert Liston in Britain and elsewhere, had to operate.[15][16]Florence Nightingale famously worked on the design of safe and healthy hospitals.[14]
By 1993, the hospital was still functioning as a maternity hospital.[18]
Rotunda
The eponymous Rotunda, designed by James Ensor,[8] was completed just in time for a reception hosted by James FitzGerald, Marquess of Kildare in October 1767.[19] The extensive Rotunda Rooms, designed by Richard Johnston and built adjacent to the rotunda, were completed in 1791.[20] By the early 19th century the hospital had become known as the Rotunda Hospital, after its most prominent architectural feature.[21] The Rotunda became a theatre, where the Irish Volunteers' first public meeting was held in 1913, and later housed the Ambassador Cinema. The Rotunda Rooms now house the Gate Theatre.[22]
Architecture
Patrick Wyse Jackson, curator of the Geological Museum in Trinity College, assessed the building in 1993 as part of his book "The Building Stones of Dublin: A Walking Guide" with the following remarks:
"The walls of the current building dating from 1757 are faced with Leinster granite and Kilgobbin granite... The former building was executed in Portland stone and Leinster granite, to which a sculptured frieze of ox heads and other panels were added. These are interesting as they are made of Coade stone, a fashionable artificial stone used widely in the late 1700s."[18] The Rotunda or "round room", and the buildings now occupied by the Gate Theatre were later additions.[18]
Services
The Rotunda Hospital, as both a maternity hospital and also as a training centre (affiliated with Trinity College Dublin)[23] is notable for having provided continuous service to mothers and babies since inception, making it the oldest continuously operating maternity hospital in the world.[24] It is estimated that over 300,000 babies have been born there.[25]
Criticism
In 2000 the Rotunda Hospital was one of two Dublin maternity hospitals found to have illegally retained organ tissue from babies without parental consent. The tissue removed in post-mortem examinations was retained for some years. The Rotunda hospital admitted that permission should have been sought for this process to be allowed to take place.[26]
A medical negligence award was approved in 2020 for a young boy who developed cerebral palsy as a result of complications with his delivery at the hospital in 2004.[27]
^Gordon, Richard (1983). "Disastrous Motherhood: Tales from the Vienna Wards". Great Medical Disasters. London: Hutchinson & Co. pp. 43–46. p.43
^Holmes, O.W. (March 1842). "On the contagiousness of puerperal fever". New England Quarterly Journal of Medicine. i: 503–30. in Gordon, R. (1983), p.147.
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