Government General Hospital, Chennai

Government General Hospital is a major state-owned hospital situated in Chennai, India. The hospital with 3,000 beds is funded and managed by the state government of Tamil Nadu. Founded in 1664 by the British East India Company, it is the first medical institution in India. In the 19th century, the Madras Medical College joined it.HistoryThe Government General Hospital was started on 16 November 1664 as a small hospital to treat the sick soldiers of the British East India Company. It was the untiring inspiring efforts of Sir Edward Winter who was the agent of the company that materialized in the first British Hospital at Madras.In its early days, the Hospital was housed at the Fort St. George and in the next 25 years, it grew into a formal medical facility. Governor Sir Elihu Yale (the initial benefactor of the world-renowned Yale University) was instrumental in the development of the Hospital and gave it new premises within the Fort in 1690.The Hospital moved out of the Fort after the Anglo-French War and it took 20 years before it could settle in the present permanent place in 1772. By the year 1772, the Hospital was training Europeans, Eurasians and natives in Western methods of diagnosis and treatment and methods of preparing medicines. These trained personnel were posted to various dispensaries in the district headquarters of the then Madras Presidency to assist the qualified doctors. Subsequently, the hospital was turned into Garrison Hospital in 1814. By 1820, the institution had the recognition as the model hospital of the East India Company. In 1827, D. Mortimar was appointed as the Superintendent of the Hospital.