Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast

The Royal Victoria Hospital is a hospital in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The hospital is undergoing a £74 million refurbishing. This includes an extension to the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children, new wards in the main hospital, a new accident and emergency department and a new maternity unit. The hospital has a Regional Virus Centre, which is one of the four laboratories in the United Kingdom on the WHO list of laboratories able to perform PCR for rapid diagnosis of influenza A virus infection in humans.HistoryEarly historyThe Royal Victoria Hospital has its origins in a number of successive institutions, beginning in 1797 with The Belfast Fever Hospital and General Dispensary, located in Factory Row . This moved to West Street in 1799, and then to Frederick Street in 1817. In 1847 the hospital separated from the General Dispensary and became the Belfast General Hospital. In 1875 it gained the royal charter, becoming the Belfast Royal Hospital, and in 1899 it was renamed the Royal Victoria Hospital. In 1903 it moved from Frederick Street to its present site.Grosvenor RoadThe first hospital building on this site was designed in 1899 by architects Henman and Cooper of Birmingham. Completed in 1906, the Royal Victoria Hospital is a landmark in building engineering which claims to be the first air-conditioned public building in the world. Belfast's Sirocco Works factory pioneered the development of air conditioning.