About the hospital (Wiki Google translation)
The Reinier de Graaf Gasthuis is a hospital in the South Holland municipality of Delft, located in the west bordering Den Hoorn (municipality of Midden-Delfland). Named after the doctor Reinier de Graaf, the hospital has about 3,000 employees, including about 200 medical specialists.
The new building of the Reinier de Graaf hospital in 2014.
A Delft hospice is first mentioned in a charter by Pope Innocent IV dated 11 October 1252. This hospice is one of the legal predecessors of today's Reinier de Graaf Gasthuis, making it the oldest surviving hospital in the Netherlands. In its early days, the Delft hospice stood on the east side of Koornmarkt.
In 1968, the Old and New Hospital moved to a new location on Westlandseweg, west of the city centre and south of the old village centre of Den Hoorn. In addition, two other inner-city hospitals moved to Reinier de Graafweg. Contractor was construction company Leon Melchior from Maastricht. These were the Catholic ‘Sint-Hippolytus hospital’ (in 1970) and the Protestant ‘Bethel hospital’ (in 1972).
Because the three hospitals were only a few hundred metres apart, it was decided to combine certain functions. To this end, the Central Laboratory of the Stichting Samenwerkende Delftse Ziekenhuizen was built in the heart of the triangle by the same contractor. It was opened in 18 February 1971 by state secretary of social affairs and public health Dr R.J.H. Kruisinga. The hospitals were able to exchange many materials via tube mail underground.
With the merger in the 1980s, the independence of Old and New Hospital came to an end. The hospital function was centred in the two buildings on Reinier de Graafweg in buildings ‘B’ and ‘H’. The building on Westlandseweg was closed.
On 28 August 2015, a new building was inaugurated, situated on the former car park between the two old buildings.
History
The earliest times
The foundation of the Delft guest house is probably thanks to Damsel Rikarde, a daughter of the Dutch Count Willem I and Aleid van Gelre. Rikade remained unmarried. As a member of the family, she was allocated part of the county as a source of income. She owned the domains around Delft and Pijnacker. Thanks to her influence, Delft was given city rights in 1246. Moreover, in 1251 she founded the Koningsveld monastery just south of the city, where noble women could lead a consecrated life. The aforementioned charter of 1252, addressed to Koningsveld, shows that the Delft guest house was among the possessions of this monastery. This indicates that this guest house was also founded by Rikarde. As early as the thirteenth century, the city council managed to have a say in the administration and management of the guest house. Over the course of the Middle Ages, this control continued to expand. When the monasteries were abolished in 1572 due to the Reformation, the city had sole control.
Old Gasthuis on the Koornmarkt, engraving from about 1680 by Coenraet Decker
The Delft guesthouse was on the east side of the Koornmarkt. The Sint-Jorisgasthuis was founded at Noordeinde around 1400. The institution on the Koornmarkt has since been called the Oude Gasthuis. In 1557 there was a serious plague epidemic in Delft. The Oude Gasthuis could not accommodate all the victims and needed an annex. The ailing Mary Magdalene Monastery on the Verwersdijk was closed and made available. From now on it was called the New Gasthuis. This building was completely destroyed when the gunpowder house exploded in 1654. A new plague house was built east of Delft, outside the city walls.
Already in the Middle Ages, the city government had a say in the regulation of health care for the population. During the time of the famous physician Reinier de Graaf, in the middle of the 17th century, university-trained 'doctores medicinae' and surgeons worked intensively together; both professional groups were even united in the same guild. It is remarkable that the midwives were also more or less included in the surgeons' guild. Midwives were therefore obliged to take exams in the surgeon's room. The guild, in turn, protected the midwifery profession by taking action against unauthorized women who wanted to attend deliveries without training. Delft was therefore the first city in the Netherlands where training and examination requirements for future midwives were achieved and where there was already a protected profession. The organization of the health system in Delft functioned so well that a medical scientist like Reinier de Graaf was happy to settle there and could call himself 'fortunately a doctor in Delft'.
Reinier de Graaf and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek
In the seventeenth century, two people worked in Delft who made a fundamental contribution to the development of medical science.
As an autodidact, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) made a large number of new observations with his own microscopes. Reinier de Graaf (1641-1673) conducted research into the female genital organs and reproduction using new, experimental methods. Reinier de Graaf was the first to observe the human egg cell, while his fellow citizen Van Leeuwenhoek was credited with the first observation of a spermatozoid. Reinier de Graaf's sensational discoveries and discoveries in the field of the female reproductive organs form the basis of our current knowledge of reproductive anatomy, physiology and endocrinology. The Delft hospitals now owe their name to this physician: the Reinier de Graaf Group.
Old and New Guest House
The institution existed as a municipal hospital under the name Oude en Nieuwe Gasthuis until well into the twentieth century. However, a lot had already changed in Delft healthcare under the influence of pillarization. In the nineteenth century, the foundations for the Catholic St. Hippolytus Hospital were laid in the buildings Oude Delft 203-205, which gradually expanded to the rear up to Phoenixstraat. A little further along the Oude Delft, on the corner with the Bagijnhof, the Protestant Bethel Hospital was founded in 1899. In 1966, the Delft Hospitals Collaboration Foundation was established, which aimed at integrating the various institutions. That movement was strongly promoted by the housing shortage in the old city center. The Old and New Gasthuis moved to the Westlandseweg in 1968, the two Christian hospitals each built separate new buildings on the Reinier de Graafweg. The "Hippolyt" moved in 1970, Bethel in 1972. In 1982 there was a complete merger on the site of the two Christian hospitals. Until its demolition in 2016, there was talk of the B building (former Bethel) and the H building (former "Hippolyt").
Foundation Medical and Pharmaceutical Museum "De Griffioen"
A special collection of old medical and nursing instruments can be seen in the old center of Delft on the Koornmarkt. This in combination with a historic pharmacy and Reinier de Graaf's office. The collection provides a good picture of developments in medicine. Mr. Griffioen was director of the Bethel Hospital. He was one of the founders of the museum.
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