The Civil Hospital of Sanremo

At the dawn of the last century, the need was felt for a new hospital structure capable of responding to emergencies and equipped with all the modern facilities needed to ensure an efficient health service for the growing city.

In fact, on 27 April 1901, the Administrative Commission of the Ospedale Mauriziano, chaired by Senator Ernesto Marsaglia, president of the Congregazione di Carità di Sanremo, met to discuss the possibility of providing Sanremo with a new hospital.
It took a long time to travel a long and winding road...
The first project, conceived and strongly desired by the engineer Pietro Agosti, envisaged the construction of a new building with separate pavilions on the site where it was actually built.
The total cost was to be divided between the Municipality and the Congregation, and many benefactors, including Bernardo Massabò, who donated all his money, contributed to this project with donations.
Unfortunately, for financial reasons, despite the fact that expropriations had already begun, the project did not come to fruition.

Subsequently, other perspectives were considered:
a) adaptation of the Ricovero Marsaglia as a hospital pavilion,
b) acquisition of the West End Hotel,
c) Adaptation of the German Hospital to be built from scratch on the Capoduro Brothers' land near Corso Victor Hugo (Quisisana Hotel and the present Corso Matuzia).

Finally in 1928 the Administrative Commission of the Congregation announced a competition for the construction of a new hospital.
The engineer Antonio Sibilia, from Turin, an expert in the field of hospital construction, presented a report that summarised all past experience and had the merit of conceiving the construction with decidedly new criteria, in a climate of national pride, typical of the period. He rejected the idea of adapting old buildings, as was usual, and proposed the construction of a new building on the land behind the Marsaglia hospice, which was well exposed to the sun and had the advantage of already being owned by the Congregation.
Sibilia also made a list of all the necessary works: from the adequate road, to the sewage system, to the gardens and flowerbeds for the comfort of the patients.
The Provincial Sanitary Council gave a favourable opinion on the project, which was to cost 4,000,000 lire.

The hospital, named Vittorio Emanuele III, was built on the basis of the following fundamental assumptions
a) 150-160 beds, which could easily be increased in case of need;
b) to allow for the construction of an easy extension, should the capacity no longer be sufficient in the future;
c) while adhering to the criterion of pavilion construction, not to incur excessive decentralisation so as to ensure services without increasing costs;
d) to meet all health needs, bearing in mind that, with the exception of paediatrics, ophthalmology and otorhinolaryngology, which are already present on the territory in other locations, all other specialities in addition to medicine and general surgery must be practised there;
e) to establish a centre for the diffusion of medical and surgical culture in order to attract or encourage the attendance of young doctors from the city and the region.

The magazine "Ospedali d'Italia", published in 1942, considered: « The Hospital of San Remo to be one of the best types of medium-sized hospitals, not only for its enviable location, the architectural beauty of its buildings, the elegant and very successful setting, but also for the richness and completeness of its facilities, which correspond to the most modern and elegant requirements of hospital technology ».
The new hospital was surrounded by vast green areas with an incomparable view of the city below and the sea. The hospital grounds measured 26,800 square metres, equal to about 185 square metres per bed. For the orientation of the buildings, taking into account the local calorimetric data, the prevailing winds and the lie of the land, a south-eastern exposure was chosen.

As for the type of construction, the criterion of centralising the services was followed, reconciling it with the needs and requirements of the hills, since the urban building regulations did not allow for the construction of buildings on the hills that were excessively long or tall. It would not have been possible to build a single block, also to decentralise contagious diseases and separate the septic services from the wards: laundry, disinfection, mortuary.

The new hospital thus consisted of a main group of four buildings connected by a cross, occupying a large square at an altitude of 85 metres above sea level, and including the services at the entrance to the hospital and the communal wards, and other smaller buildings upstream (isolation - tuberculosis - disinfection - laundry and heating plant) so as to exploit the differences in height of the hilly terrain.

The number of beds required for the new hospital was set at 170, broken down as follows: Medicine 52, Surgery 52, Chronically ill patients 20, Obstetrics and Gynaecology 12, Tuberculosis 16, Infectious diseases 8, Temporary hospitalization 4.
The number of beds was finally 140: for economic reasons, the nuns' and staff's lodgings were sacrificed, as was the ward for in-patients on payment.

The New Vittorio Emanuele III Civil Hospital was inaugurated on 28 October 1936.  But the transfer from the old one had to wait until the following year: the Prefectural Commissioner decided to transfer the patients only on 20 March 1937.

A magnificent and innovative work for the time, it was hailed as a work of the fascist regime for the benefit of the Italian people according to the classic "salus popoli suprema lex".

It was considered an example of Modern Hospital Construction to the point that the City of Milan invited the City of San Remo to participate in the Milan International Trade Fair held from 12 to 27 April 1937, in which San Remo participated with a model of the hospital.