Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires

The Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires is a private hospital in Buenos Aires, capital of Argentina. It has 500 beds and serves around 2,000 inpatients per month. Its main facilities cover a surface area of 78,000 m². The hospital treats both private patients and those derived by social security. It also provides its own health insurance plan, being the most important pre-paid healthcare service in Argentina, with about 110,000 clients.

The first hospital
The hospital was originally an initiative of a commission formed by distinguished members of the numerous Italian immigrant community of the city. Its foundation stone was laid on 12 March 1854 on a tract of land donated by a priest, Father José Arata. Count Giovanni Battista Albini of Sardinia contributed in the name of King Vittorio Emanuele I with the sum of 45,000 pesos. The construction was nevertheless delayed due to lack of funding, until in 1858 it was resumed by the association Unione e Benevolenza.

The hospital was almost finished in 1865, when the national government asked for it to treat the wounded Brazilian soldiers of the War of the Triple Alliance. In 1867 the works were resumed, only to be stopped once again by an epidemic of cholera, which prompted the government of the city of Buenos Aires to hire it until 1869. It was employed to treat soldiers again until the end of the war in 1870, and then in 1871 to house yellow fever patients. The hospital was finally inaugurated on 8 December 1872.

The second hospital
The management of the hospital struck agreements with philanthropic associations for the attention of other immigrants besides the Italian community, and in time the facilities proved too small. A campaign was started to obtain funds from the public in order to expand them. In 1888 the government of Buenos Aires asked for it to be moved.

On 15 December 1889 the foundation stone of the new Hospital Italiano was laid, on a block of land limited by the streets named Gascón, Potosí, Palestina and Perón as of 2006, in the barrio of Almagro. The ceremony was attended by Elisa F. de Juárez Celman, wife of then-President Miguel Juárez Celman, and a representative of King Umberto I of Italy. The new building was inaugurated on 21 December 1901. In 1903 the Nursing School was installed, and in 1905 the hospital additionally became a medicine and surgery school.

A new building (the Policlínico) was inaugurated on 20 September 1913.