The Central Refugee Hospital

The hospital was originally established in 1916 as a military hospital under the name ‘3rd Red Cross Military Hospital’ and was housed in a late 19^th century Ottoman building which had operated as an Ottoman Gendarmerie School. It treated refugees and war-wounded patients, as well as fire victims from the Great Fire of 1917. In 1919, it came under the jurisdiction of the Military Health Department. In 1922, right after the Asia Minor Catastrophe, it was renovated, equipped and renamed into ‘Central Refugee Hospital’. As depicted on the cover and the title page of the first item presented here, the cost of this project was covered by Elena Venizelou and the Tsouderos couple, Emmanouil and Virginia. The 220-bed hospital opened for the public in February, 1923. In 1941, the building was appropriated by the occupying forces and the hospital was moved to the building of the Asylum for Homeless Children in Kalamaria. After the German withdrawal in 1944, the hospital returned to its original building where it is still in operation under the name ‘Georgios Gennimatas’. Among the local population it was known for years as ‘Central Hospital’.

Upon its establishment, the hospital adhered to an Internal Code of Regulations which governed the hospital’s operation and administration. The code dictated the hospital’s hierarchical structure, hiring policies, and the personnel’s duties and behaviour. In addition, it detailed patients’ duties and visiting hours. The hospital was administered by a five-member board designated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. The board convened weekly, but also whenever the need arose. The first board members were P. Syndikas, V. Nomikos, A. Zannas, A. Michitsopoulos, I. Eymos.

A modern reader might be surprised by the duties of the hospital receptionist. Assisted by the hospital barber, the receptionist had to accompany the patients to the bathroom and collect their clothes, giving them the appropriate proof of receipt. The following day, the garments would be disinfected and only then could they be placed in the patient wards. The garments of dead patients that had not been claimed for two months after the date of death were to be auctioned off to benefit the hospital. We do not know whether the instructions in the code were followed to the letter. The provisions made for the patients’ clothes were definitely aimed at preventing the transmission of infectious diseases and, in general, guarantee that the hospital would meet the appropriate hygiene standards. This was a time when people, and hospital patients in particular, were faced with scores of potentially deadly contagious pathogens and skin diseases.

The second item is a photograph depicting the main entrance of the Central Refugee Hospital in 1924. The third item shows doctors in the hospital’s yard. From the left: Theofylaktos Theofylaktos (ophthalmologist), Michail Galinos (surgeon – administrative director), Panagiotis Tsaligkopoulos, Theodoros Andreadis (surgeon).