Rotunda Hospital

Rotunda Hospital
Health Service Executive - RCSI Hospitals
Rotunda Hospital frontage on Parnell Street
Shown in Dublin
Geography
Location	Parnell Square East, Rotunda, D01 P5W9, Dublin, Ireland
Coordinates	53°21′09″N 6°15′45″W / 53.3526°N 6.2626°W / 53.3526; -6.2626
Organisation
Care system	HSE
Type	Specialist
Affiliated university	Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland Dublin City University
Patron	Bartholomew Mosse
Services
Speciality	Maternity hospital
History
Former name(s)	Dublin Lying-In Hospital
Opened	1745; 279 years ago (1745)
Links
Lists	Hospitals in the Republic of Ireland

The Rotunda Hospital (Irish: Ospidéal an Rotunda;^[1] legally the Hospital for the Relief of Poor Lying-in Women, Dublin)^[2] is a maternity hospital on Parnell Street in Dublin, Ireland, now managed by RCSI Hospitals.^[3] The Rotunda entertainment buildings in Parnell Square are no longer part of the hospital complex.

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]

The first caesarean section in Ireland was undertaken at the hospital in 1889.^[17]

By 1993, the hospital was still functioning as a maternity hospital.^[18]

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]

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]

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]

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]

• General Lying-In Hospital, London

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rotunda Hospital, Dublin.

• Official website