What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on X on 28 March 2023.

U Nemocnice was built before 1750.

Until 1750, this was Dobytčí. That’s the adjective coming from dobytek – livestock – and recalls the market that used to exist here.

Then it was named Ústavní (‘institutional’), after a local institute for noblemen. This lasted until 1800, when the name Lípová was introduced, which stuck until 1869 (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/08/31/prague-2-day-135-lipova/ is current-day Lípová, and now I get why that was called ‘lower’ Lípová until 1880).

U Nemocnice (‘By the Hospital’) has been the street’s name since 1869. The hospital in question is Všeobecná fakultní nemocnice v Praze (General University Hospital in Prague / VFN).

When Joseph II came to power in 1780, he had quite a few ideas, the most remembered of which involved banning several monastic orders and liquidating about 140 monasteries.

However, he was also interested in improving public health facilities, particularly for the poor, and these were to be funded, in part, by proceeds from the closure of the monasteries, as well as poorhouses and other medical facilities that weren’t up to scratch.

Joseph founded Vienna’s General Hospital in 1784, followed by equivalent facilities in Brno (1786 – now known as St Anna’s), and Olomouc (1787).

VFN would follow in 1790. It would have opened earlier, but there were disagreements on where it should be located – Karlov didn’t have a good water supply, so present-day Náměstí Republiky and Strahov were considered instead.

It was Joseph himself who intervened, suggesting an underused building on the location of the former cattle market (namely the aforementioned institute for nobles). Expensive reconstruction started in 1789, with the hospital opening a year later.

The hospital was designed to provide care to all patients, irrespective of their status, religion or nationality; poor citizens of Prague got care for free, as long as they could prove their circumstances (and had lived in Prague for ten years).

Nowadays, the hospital is one of the most important institutions in Prague, and, with the First Faculty of Medicine of Charles University, is also renowned for its teaching, science and research.

It’s exactly 25 years and two days since VFN was where Parkinson’s disease was operated on for the first time in the Czech Republic: https://www.novinky.cz/clanek/zena-zdravi-pred-25-lety-se-v-cesku-poprve-operovala-parkinsonova-nemoc-blanku-operace-mozku-vratila-do-zivota-40426604

VFN also recently announced that it was opening a new intensive care unit for the morbidly obese: https://www.expats.cz/czech-news/article/rise-in-extreme-obesity-leads-to-opening-of-new-metabolic-unit-in-prague

Meanwhile, if you enter the hospital’s grounds, a statue of old Joe still awaits you: https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C5%A1eobecn%C3%A1_fakultn%C3%AD_nemocnice_v_Praze#/media/Soubor:Socha_Josefa_II._na_n%C3%A1dvo%C5%99%C3%AD_VFN_Praha.jpg