Marmeleiros Hospital

St Elizabeth’s Hospital (Hospital de Santa Isabel), which belongs to the Holy House of Mercy (Santa Casa da Misericórdia) of Funchal, operated for 244 years in the building now occupied by the offices of the District General Council (Junta Geral) of this autonomous district. It began to be known as Marmeleiros Hospital (Hospital dos Marmeleiros) in 1931, when the various hospital services moved to the large new building in the locality (sítio) of Marmeleiros (‘quince trees’), in the parish (freguesia) of Nossa Senhora do Monte (‘Our Lady of the Mount’).

As will be explained at greater length in the article Sanatoria, in 1903 the Portuguese government granted the German prince Frederico Hohenlohe a concession to establish seaside and mountain sanatoria in Madeira for the treatment of lung diseases. In return, he was obliged to admit to them a certain number of poor patients of Portuguese nationality suffering from diseases of that kind. Among these establishments was the hospital in the locality of Marmeleiros, begun in 1905 and intended particularly for the destitute, which is why it came to be called the Sanatório dos Pobres (Sanatorium of the Poor). The decree of 3 November 1909 authorised the cancellation of the contract between the Portuguese government and Prince Hohenlohe, who was awarded compensation of 4,425,000 marks, plus 328,541 marks in accrued interest.

The Marmeleiros building, whose construction had never been entirely completed, stood there utterly abandoned and exposed to every kind of weather until the central government, in a most praiseworthy and beneficial act of public administration, ceded it to the Holy House of Mercy (Misericórdia) of Funchal for the installation of its hospital, by the decrees of 9 and 29 March 1928. The first patients were transferred there in November 1930 and the rest the following year. The building was then fully completed and suitably adapted for that purpose, and it is one of the foremost hospitals of its kind in the country, not only as an appropriate facility but also for the way in which all its clinical and nursing services are provided. To this end, the Managing Board (Mesa Gerente) of the Holy House (Santa Casa, the Misericórdia) was authorised by the decree of 17 January 1930 to raise a loan of five hundred contos (one million réis) de réis from the Caixa Geral dos Depósitos, giving as security the proceeds of the 4% surcharge on the duties collected at the Funchal customs house, which had been created by the decree of 28 November 1927.

In all fairness it must be recorded here that the most notable benefit received by the Misericórdia of Funchal over its long history of four centuries was the installation of its hospital in the building of the Marmeleiros Sanatorium (Sanatório dos Marmeleiros). This invaluable and never sufficiently praised improvement is due chiefly to the diligent efforts and boundless dedication of the Managing Board presided over by Canon Manuel Francisco Camacho in the period from 1930 to 1933.

The hospital facilities, however, were insufficient for the ever-growing number of patients, and it became urgently necessary both to enlarge the building and to create new sources of revenue to improve the financial position of that charitable institution. Despite the pressing representations of its successive Managing Boards to the higher authorities, it took Dr José Nosolini’s assumption of the office of civil governor of this district to bring about the great benefit of building several new wards, able to accommodate a further 120 patients, and three operating theatres, besides other improvements. These new hospital services were formally inaugurated on 10 August 1940. See Misericórdias.