Sunday: June 20
Hospitals
We are going to take a quick look at three hospitals. I'm not sure why, just because they were there and I took a few pictures. The third one, Val de Grace is absoutely beautiful (at least the old part is) but it is military and closed and impossible to get into. They way they run tours but I can't find one and no one there is talking. while some of them look nice (on the outside), my recommendation would be to get sick somewhere else. Socialist medicine doesn't look all that inviting to me. Never the less, something worth looking at since you walking on the street anyway.... Enjoy!
Hôpital Saint-Louis
Hôpital Saint-Louis is a hospital in Paris, France. It is part of the Assistance publique - Hôpitaux de Paris hospital system, and it is located at 1 avenue Claude-Vellefaux..
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Click here to see other pictures....
Built specifically to take care of incurable patients, while part of the general hospital it runs independent of the regular hospital system. It took it's first patient in 1637. Later, men were transferred to a separate facility and this hospital was made exclusive to women. It continues to operate today.
Click here to see other pictures....
Click here to see other pictures....
Val-de-Grâce
The Val-de-Grâce (Hôpital d'instruction des armées du Val-de-Grâce or HIA
Val-de-Grâce) is a military hospital.
The church of the Val-de-Grâce was built by order of Queen Anne of Austria, wife
of Louis XIII. After the birth of her son Louis XIV, Anne (previously childless
after 23 years of marriage) showed her gratitude to the Virgin Mary by building
a church on the land of a Benedictine convent. Louis XIV himself is said to have
laid the cornerstone for the Val-de-Grâce in a ceremony that took place April 1,
1645, when he was seven years old.
The church of the Val-de-Grâce, designed by François Mansart and Jacques
Lemercier, is considered by some as Paris's best example of baroque architecture
(curving lines, elaborate ornamentation and harmony of different elements).
Construction began in 1645, and was completed in 1667.
The Benedictine nuns provided medical care for injured revolutionaries during
the French Revolution, and thus the church at Val-de-Grace was spared much of
the desecration and vandalism that plagued other, more famous Paris churches
(Notre Dame was looted and turned into a warehouse; St. Eustache was used as a
barn, for example). As a result, the church's exquisite interior is one of the
few unspoiled remnants of Paris's pre-Revolution grandeur. Following the
Revolution, the buildings were converted into a military hospital.
Currently, the original buildings only serve for offices and teaching facilities
(École d'application du Service de santé des armées); the actual medical
facilities are inside a large modern building to the east on the same grounds.
The present-day hospital was built in the 1970s and completed in 1979. It has a
capacity of 350 beds, in various specialties. The hospital is accessible to
military personnel in need of medical aid as well as to any person with health
coverage under the French social security system. It is famous for being the
place where the top officials of the French Republic generally get treated for
ailment.
The statue standing in the courtyard is that of Dominique Jean Larrey (as
sculpted by David d'Angers in 1843), who was Napoleon's personal surgeon and
innovator of the concept of battlefield triage.
The old abbey alongside the church is now a museum of French army medicine.
Tours of the museum and church are available for a small fee (being a military
facility, the grounds are under military guard and tourists are escorted).
Cameras are not permitted.
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Click here to see other pictures....