Aarhus County Hospital

Aarhus County Hospital
Central Denmark Region
Entrance to the County Hospital
Geography
Location	Aarhus, Central Region, Denmark
Coordinates	56°09′30.5″N 10°11′11.4″E / 56.158472°N 10.186500°E / 56.158472; 10.186500Coordinates: 56°09′30.5″N 10°11′11.4″E / 56.158472°N 10.186500°E / 56.158472; 10.186500
Organisation
Funding	Government hospital
Affiliated university	Aarhus University
Network	Aarhus University Hospital
History
Founded	1882
Links
Website	www.auh.dk

Aarhus County Hospital or Aarhus Sygehus, Tage-Hansens Gade is a hospital in Aarhus, situated on Tage-Hansens Gade in the neighbourhood of Vesterbro in the inner city. The hospital was established in 1882 and is today a department under Aarhus University Hospital.

Aarhus County Hospital was established in 1882 on Kroghsgade which at the time was a part of Viby Municipality. The hospital was for the residents of Aarhus County while the inhabitants of Aarhus used an older hospital on Dynkarken. The initial hospital complex consisted of a main building and another building for epidemiology with 42 beds. The new hospital quickly experienced insufficient space in spite of a series of large expansions. In the 1920s the County council recognized more investments were needed to secure the future of the hospital. Scientific advances had made it possible to heal far more diseases and the population within the county had exploded. The council hired the architect Axel Høeg-Hansen to develop a plan for an expansion. Høeg-Hansen presented a plan for an expansion that would cost 2 million Danish Kroner and another plan for a new hospital on a different site that would cost 3 million. The council abandoned any plans to build a new hospital and instead started working on plans for a new hospital.

Aarhus Municipality turned out to be interested in the existing hospital complex and offered 500,000 Danish Kroner for it along with a large parcel of land between Silkeborgvej and Viborgvej. The county accepted the offer partly because it was economically favorably and partly because the county hospital was increasingly collaboring with Aarhus University which lay close by. The agreement was signed in 1930. Axel Høeg-Hansen was hired to design the new hospital and he created a large cohesive hospital complex with 316 beds. The hospital section was placed in a 200 meter long four story building oriented east to west. The building was divided in an east wing for medicinal treatment and a west wing for surgical treatment separated by a central hall. The patient rooms were divided in sections of 25 patients placed in three rooms with six beds, two rooms with two beds, and one room for single occupancy, a system that was maintained for decades to come. The hospital was inaugurated in 1935 after four million bricks had been laid and 4.1 million Kroner had been spent.