Nurses’ Week, Handel’s Messiah, Oldest Maternity Hospital!
About this episode
The episode discusses the history of the Rotunda Maternity Hospital and its connection to Nurses' Week and Handel's Messiah.
From a 10-bed lying-in hospital to Handel’s Messiah, the Rotunda Maternity Hospital has operated continuously for 281 years. A Nurses’ Week story. Summary Across the street from Danny’s Dublin hotel stood a large white institutional building with no signage. It turned out to be the Rotunda Hospital — the oldest continuously operating maternity hospital in the world, delivering babies in the same building since December 8th, 1757. Surgeon Bartholomew Mosse founded it after losing his wife and child in childbirth, trained as a midwife in Paris at a time when physicians were penalized for practicing midwifery, and returned to Dublin determined to build something that didn’t yet exist. The first version had 10 beds and delivered 190 babies in its first year, with one maternal death. Unable to raise money for a larger hospital — no one wanted to fund poor women’s care — Mosse attended the world premiere of Handel’s Messiah in Dublin in 1742 and was inspired. He turned the future hospital site into a pleasure garden with orchestras, dances, and theater to attract wealthy donors. He was later imprisoned for debt, escaped through a castle window in Wales, hid in…
People in this episode
Host: Danny van Leeuwen
Topics covered
- maternity hospital
- nursing history
- Handel's Messiah
- healthcare funding
- women's health
Keywords
- Rotunda Hospital
- Bartholomew Mosse
- Nurses' Week
- maternity care
- healthcare history
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Rotunda Maternity Hospital
Books & works: Handel’s Messiah
More episodes of Health Hats, the Podcast
- 296 Pages of Data, Zero Bites of Information
- Alone in a Dark Hospital Room, She Asked Claude
- Crutches, Caves, and Currents: Tubing in Belize
- If You Have a Body, You’re an Athlete: Training for MS
- Retirement Improvisation – Onward: 2025 Holiday Letter
- A Third on the Shelf: Rethinking Power in Community Research
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Health Hats, the Podcast podcast page.