Rigshospitalet

Rigshospitalet, or simply Riget (as in Lars von Trier's mini-series The Kingdom) - is The Kingdom Hospital in Denmark, situated in Copenhagen. It is part of the Copenhagen University Hospital together with the faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Copenhagen.

Rigshospitalet was founded in 30th March 1757 under the name "Kongelig Frederiks Hospital", named after King Frederik V. It was back then located in Bredgade in central Copenhagen.

Rigshospitalet's mission is to be Denmark's leading hospital for patients needing highly specialized treatment.. Rigshospitalet's main specialist role has been enhanced in recent years by the decision that it should serve as the host institution for many of Copenhagen's speciality departments. Because of this, other hospitals refer patients to Rigshospitalet for the unique expertise available there. Rigshospitalet’s neighbor, Panum Institute, houses the Health Sciences Faculty of Copenhagen University, and this proximity optimizes a close cooperation between the two in the fields of research and development. The Nordic Cochrane Centre and the University Centre for Nursing and Care Research are both placed within Rigshospitalet.

With 1,120 beds, Rigshospitalet has responsibility for 65,000 inpatients and approximately 420,000 ambulant visits annually. In addition to its eight thousand personnel (seven thousand full-time equivalents), the hospital trains, hosts, and has the in-service advantages of students of medicine and other health care sciences, as well as scientists working within Rigshospitalet under a variety of research grants.

The hospital became internationally famous as the location of Lars von Trier's television horror mini-series ''The Kingdom.

It is also famous for being the hospital in which Crown Princess Mary of Denmark gave birth to her two children by Crown Prince Frederik, Prince Christian and Princess Isabella.

This year (2007) Rigshospitalet is celebrating its 250th anniversary.

In 2006/7, however, the Danish government has put forth a proposal for a new elite-hospital to surpass Rigshospitalet.

Failure to test blood properly
Two patients were infected with HIV at Rigshospitalet in February 2007 after getting a blood transfusion with infected blood. The hospital has displayed no intention of going public with the details of either the infected patients or the blood donor. The contagion could, according to experts, probably have been discovered at the time if the blood had been tested with a NAT-test, which is used by many other western countries.