UMCG bestaat 225 jaar

 

These were the very first UMCG patients 

A button maker, a sailor, a handful of maids and soldiers: between 1797 and 1798 they were the first to be admitted in the “Nosocomium Academicum” on the Hofstraat in Groningen. Although the hospital was not quite the success at the time, its medical treatments were.
11 November 1797. Professor of medicine Evert Jan Thomassen à Thuessink has left home in the early hours of the morning to attend his very first consultation in the guardian’s room of the ‘Diaconie Arm- en Kinderhuis’, also known as the Green Orphanage. Today, his first patients report to the newly furnished consulting room. Together with the specially appointed physician Jacobus van Geuns, he has agreed that he will first make the diagnosis, after which Van Geuns will take over the care of the professor. Van Geuns arranges the medication. 

Patients in the women’s and men’s room for the first time

The first five patients on this autmn day in 1797 are clearly lower class: two orphan boys, two poor men and a cleaning lady. They have come to the right place at Thomassen à Thuessink’s, for this free consultation hour is especially intended for them. After the first day of outpatients’ care, the first admission to hospital follows a few days later. The 24-year-old maid Anna Portmans is admitted to the women’s room with ‘cataract fevers’. On 27th November 1797, the first male patient is admitted to the hospital’s men’s room. The 66-year-old indigent A. Lijphart is treated for paralysis.  

“Water in the chest”

During the first year, the Groningen patients find the eight-bed hospital mainly with respiratory complaints: tuberculosis, pleurisy and shortness of breath are frequently observed ailments. Various types of fevers also occurred. The most remarkable thing is the success of the treatment. Of the 106 patients, four died and one could not be helped any further. Thirteen patients improved, while sixty were declared cured. For the rest, the result of the treatment is unknown or the cure is still going on in February 1799.  

Dying-house for the poor

Despite the succesful treatments, the hospital is not yet a great success. Thomassen à Thuessink has difficulty finding suitable patients and the occupancy rate remains low during that first year. Most citizens tend to see hospitals primarily as mortuaries for the poor. Admission is a humiliating form of begging. The fact that the hospital was created in the poorhouse and that the daily care was in the hands of attendants and maids confirmed this opinion. Most of the time, the beds were unoccupied. Now, 225 years later, the difference could not be greater.