Municipal maternity clinic of St. Apollinaire
In this article we will together visit the most familiar maternity clinic of Prague which was at the time of its founding considered the greatest maternity clinic of Europe. The building of red fair-face bricks is a unique and perfectly constructed building. Let´s go together reveal its secret.
The start of the construction
First, the Prague maternity clinic was located in the building close to St. Apollinaire Church. However, the terms were not completely sufficient and therefore it was necessary to build a new maternity clinic. The Municipal Committee of the Bohemian Kingdom encharged the significant architect Josef Hlávka in 1863 to work out a project according to which the new maternity clinic would be constructed. The architect was looking for the inspiration mainly among the foreign maternity clinics and this way he got the exact idea of how the construction should look like. His model buildings were the hospitals of Brussels, Vienna and Paris. So could a building, contemporarily considered the larest maternity clinic of Europe, come into existence. The construction works of the Neo-Gothic maternity clinic were performed btw. 1867 – 1870.
How did the construction look like?
The construction of a square layout with an inner courtyard in the middle is formed by the total of eleven tracts. These tracts leading into different sections of the hospital are mutually interconnected by corridors. There used to be a Chapel of the Holy Cross and the administrative part of the maternity clinic in the front face. The birth tracts and classrooms which were connected to the bed departments were located around the inner courtyard. Besides, there were also the laundry, kitchen and machine-room in the premises of the hospital.
The hospital bed capacity was three hundred and seventy-six. There were three clinics to be found here – the medical clinic, the midwives clinic and the obstetrician clinic. The midwives clinic was determined for the midwives in particular. There was a foundling asylum in the hospital, too. Mothers who could not look after their children often went to the foundling place and gave them away here. There was also a special entrance leading to a secret department. Rich ladies gave their childern away secretly here or classified childbirths took place here.
Services of the maternity clinic
The treatment in the maternity clinic was divided in three levels, namely according to price. However, there were also poor women in childbed in the third price group who did not pay for the services of the maternity house. The women were looked after by midwives, nurses, servant maids and cooks here.
Lucie Niebauerová
Website of Gynecology and Obstetrics Apollinaire(Apolinář)
Address:
Apolinářská 441/18,
128 00 Praha-Nové Město
Connection:
Tram: 18, 24, 53, 55 – tram stop Botanická zahrada – from here walk upwards along the Apolinářská street
Bus – 291 – Apolinářská
Public transport
Find a connection
GPS: Loc: 50°4’17.003″N, 14°25’35.673″E
All about the Clinic of St. Apollinaire
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