Hello,
I’m french and I curious about why most of hospital in USA are named like Memorial Hospital.
Thanks for your answer.
In: 4
Same as the UK has “War Memorial” hospitals. Or “Queen Alexandra” they’re just named after/for something/someone.
A lot of times hospitals are named for someone in their memory. It’s similar to roads being named after influential people, it’s generally to honor someone or some idea.
Hospitals and facilities are often built using donations.
A memorial Hospital is one that is named in the memory of someone who likely paid a considerable amount of money to expand or build that hospital.
This is also why wings, buildings, or departments within a Hospital (or a University) are often named after donors. It’s not enough for rich people to donate money to charity, there’s often a bit of vanity involved in getting their name stamped onto a building. For the institution, what do they care what the building is called so long as they get the new facility.
When someone rich dies they sometimes leave millions in charitable donations in their wills. One option for this is to pay to expand or build a hospital.
For example if a rich person has cancer and got an extra 20 years out of their life due to treatment at a hospital they might feel grateful enough to pay to expand the oncology department or build a new ward etc.
One real world example I can think of is the Adelaide General Hospitals Helipad was bought and paid for by F1 Driver Mika Hakkinen as a thank you for that hospital saving his life after his horrific crash in Australia.
One thing to be careful about, if you’re looking at hospitals in movies and TV shows, is that they’ll often use a generic-sounding name rather than a real place. So there are lots of TV shows featuring “Memorial Hospitals”, but the real-life ones are more likely “So-and-So Memorial Hospital”, named after someone important.
There are two “so-and-so memorial hospitals” near me, both are named after wealthy people whose money or mansion was donated to found the hospital.
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