Universitair Ziekenhuis Leuven or University Hospitals Leuven, often shortened to UZ Leuven, is an academic hospital in

Leuven Leuven (, ) or Louvain (, , ; german: link=no, Löwen ) is the capital and largest city of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located about east of Brussels. The municipality itself comprises the historic c ...

, Belgium, associated with the university

KU Leuven KU Leuven (or Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) is a Catholic research university in the city of Leuven, Belgium. It conducts teaching, research, and services in computer science, engineering, natural sciences, theology, humanities, medicine, ...

. It consists of three campuses as of 2022; Gasthuisberg, Pellenberg and Sint-Rafaël. The hospital has 1,995 beds and over 9,000 employees.

Campuses

Campus Gasthuisberg

Literally translated 'guest house hill' (''gasthuis'' is an obsolete Dutch word for hospital), its name has become synonymous with UZ Leuven. It is the biggest and most well known of all the campuses. It houses many facilities of the university among which research laboratories, auditoria of the faculty of medicine and faculty of pharmaceutical sciences, a manual procedures training center, a library and a student restaurant. Aside from the

, the UCLL (University Colleges Leuven Limburg), part of KU Leuven Association, also has teaching facilities on the Gasthuisberg campus where bachelor’s degree programs such as nursing, dental hygiene, midwifery, medical imagery and other fields are taught. The campus also includes St. Francis, affiliated with UCLL, which offers associate degrees in nursing. Lastly, there is the Leuven Perfusion School, affiliated with KU Leuven, which trains nurses and medical doctors in order to become certified clinical perfusionists. Still expanding, this campus is known for being almost permanently under construction since the start of its construction in the early 1970s.

Campus Pellenberg

Campus Pellenberg is located in the district of Pellenberg, about 8 km from the city center of

. It is located in a more rural area and is most known for being a recovery clinic. As of 2017, UZ Leuven is relocating several services from the Pellenberg campus to the main campus, Gasthuisberg.

Campus Sint-Pieter

Sint-Pieter (Saint-Peter) was the oldest campus dating back to the year 1080. It used to be located in the city center. By 2019, all operations in this campus were halted as the move to the Gasthuisberg campus was completed. Demolition of the buildings has been completed since 2021.

Campus Sint-Rafaël

Sint-Rafaël (Saint-Raphael) is located next to campus Sint-Pieter within the inner city of Leuven. There are some older auditoria and laboratories which are still in use. The human dissections of the faculty of medicine used to take place here. In 2020, a new human dissection teaching center opened at Campus Gasthuisberg. Since most clinical and educational operations now moved to campus Gasthuisberg, the Sint Rafael campus is partly deconstructed.

History

*1080: Sint-Pietersziekenhuis (Saint-Peter's Hospital) is built. *1426: Medical courses for the

Old University of Leuven The Old University of Leuven (or of Louvain) is the name historians give to the university, or '' studium generale'', founded in Leuven, Brabant (then part of the Burgundian Netherlands, now part of Belgium), in 1425. The university was closed ...

are taught at the Saint-Peter's Hospital. *1836: The city of

and the newly established Catholic University of Louvain decide to build a new Saint-Peter's Hospital. *1928: The Catholic University of Louvain builds the Saint-Rafael campus. This is the official start of the university's own academic hospital. *1945: Partially destroyed after the

Second world war World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, a new hospital is built. *1958: Sanatorium Saint Barbara in Pellenberg, for the treatment of tuberculosis, is attached to the Catholic University's academic hospital. *1970: After the split of the university into a French- and a Dutch-speaking part, UZ Leuven in its current structure is founded, accommodating the new, autonomous Dutch-speaking faculty of medicine. Construction of a new campus and academic hospital in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

for the French-speaking staff and faculty of the ''

Université catholique de Louvain The Université catholique de Louvain (also known as the Catholic University of Louvain, the English translation of its French name, and the University of Louvain, its official English name) is Belgium's largest French-speaking university. It ...

'' begins. *1971: A site just outside the city, known as Gasthuisberg, is found to be the ideal location for a new campus for the university hospital. *1975: Phase I of the new project, a pediatrics department, is now in use. *1971: The '' Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven'' takes over all the infrastructures in Leuven, and French-speaking staff and faculty leave the city and move to the newly built UCLouvain Brussels Woluwe campus in

, where the

Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc The Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc (UCLouvain Saint-Luc) is a non-profit academic hospital of the University of Louvain (UCLouvain), located on the university campus of UCLouvain Bruxelles Woluwe in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, Brussels, Belgium. ...

are inaugurated. *1980: Phase II adds capacity and an

emergency room An emergency department (ED), also known as an accident and emergency department (A&E), emergency room (ER), emergency ward (EW) or casualty department, is a medical treatment facility specializing in emergency medicine, the acute care of pati ...

gynecology Gynaecology or gynecology (see American and British English spelling differences, spelling differences) is the area of medicine that involves the treatment of women's diseases, especially those of the reproductive organs. It is often paired with ...

maternity ] A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of ges ...

, internal medicine and

surgery Surgery ''cheirourgikē'' (composed of χείρ, "hand", and ἔργον, "work"), via la, chirurgiae, meaning "hand work". is a medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a person to investigate or treat a pa ...

department. *1989: the start of phase III. Some departments from Pellenberg and Sint-Rafaël are moved to Gasthuisberg. The Centrum voor Menselijke Erfelijkheid (CME, center for human

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar work ...

) is now housed in Gasthuisberg together with other

laboratories A laboratory (; ; colloquially lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. Laboratory services are provided in a variety of settings: physi ...

. *2001: A phase IV project should move remaining departments from Sint-Pieter to Gasthuisberg. *2010: The European Investment Bank grants EUR 325 million for the development of the Health Sciences Campus Gasthuisberg - Healthcare, Innovation and Education are not only physically combined but also intertwined at campus level.

References

{{Authority control Buildings and structures in Leuven Hospitals in Belgium Hospitals established in the 11th century Hospitals established in 1970 1970 establishments in Belgium Teaching hospitals KU Leuven