The Buitenhospitaal at Batavia

The Buitenhospitaal (Outer hospital) was founded to unburden the fully occupied Binnenhospitaal (City Hospital) that was established in the old town of Batavia.The new hospital was established in a healthy surrounding, in the place called Noordwijk, about 7.5 km from Batavia. It was opened on the 23rd of August 1743. By the year of 1756 the average number of inpatients of this new hospital was 240.  After the realization of new buildings  from 1768 onward the ratio of patients in the Buitenhospitaal and the Binnenhospitaal shifted in favour of the Buitenhospitaal and ultimately arrived at 1200:800. The capacity of 2000 beds for these two hospitals together hardly seemed sufficient to cope with the high number of admissions and the high mortality among seamen, military and VOC staff. The Buitenhospitaal never answered the demands of a hospital that was to accomodate 1,200 patients according to Swaving, C. “Batavia’s sanitaire geschiedenis onder het bestuur van de Oost-Indische Maatschappij”, Ned Tijdschr  Geneeskd 27 (1878) 1-210.The hospital was closed in 1836. Its patients were transferred to the military hospital Weltevreden.