Bispebjerg Hospital

Bispebjerg Hospital is located in the northwestern part of Copenhagen in Denmark.

Areas of responsibility
Bispebjerg Hospital serves the Copenhagen City Districts Bispebjerg, Brønshøj-Husum, Indre By, Ydre Nørrebro, Indre Nørrebro (excluding Ryvang Øst). The hospital does both acute and elective procedures. In addition, the hospital has both national and regional responsibilities in the areas of dermatovenerology and neurology.

Being part of the University Hospital of Copenhagen, research also takes place at Bispebjerg Hospital. An Example of research conducted at the hospital is the CapOpus Randomized Controlled Trial aimed at reducing cannabis consumption among cannabis dependent patients with comorbid schizophrenia.

Key figures
Bispebjerg Hospital has around 700 beds, receiving almost 300,000 patients every year for admission or ambulatory care. In 2005, the hospital had a budget of 1.6 billion Danish kroner (approximately 290 million US dollars).

History
Bispebjerg Hospital was opened on September 19 1913. It was designed by the architect Martin Nyrop and covered, as it does today, 48 acres and was located so far from the city that not even the trams went there.

World War II
During the German occupation of Denmark 1940 to 1945 in World War II, Bispebjerg Hospital treated those illegally resisting the occupying forces, harboured jews and helped transport about 2,000 of them to safety in neutral Sweden. Those in the resistance movement were given new identities in the hospital's basements, e.g. by changing patients' medical charts. The first issue of the resistance movement's magazine, Frit Danmark was printed in the hospital's basements.

Modern history
When Hovedstadens Sygehusfællesskab started in 1985, Bispebjerg Hospital lost several of its specialties. The hospital started focusing on prevention, e.g. departments dealing with falling accidents and with memory functions. In 1997, Bispebjerg was the first Danish hospital to open a palliative department.