The history of the Hospital takes us back to the autumn of 1840. The Hospital's nearly 200 years of existence have been under the banner of continuous development and improvement.
In the autumn of 1840, the Royal Judge of the Trei Scaune county received written instructions from the government, requesting him to present to the Royal Government the project for the hospital to be built according to local conditions. The necessity of building the hospital was imposed by the continuously deteriorating health of the population: infectious diseases were claiming more and more victims, and syphilis was spreading.
According to the documents available to us, the royal judge is taking immediate action, and the engineer László József, originally from the commune of Ozun, submits the hospital building project, a document that is actually a cost estimate totaling 1894 forints.
The festive laying of the cornerstone took place on August 4, 1851, followed by rapid progress of the work, with the building being completed in March 1853. However, the opening was delayed due to the lack of furniture and other necessary equipment. Carpenters from the town of Tîrgu Secuiesc undertook the free execution of the furniture, the kitchenware was also cast in Tîrgu Secuiesc by the well-known master Túróczy Mózes, and the linen was voluntarily made by the women of the town of Sfîntu Gheorghe.
According to the newspaper Kronstädtter Zeitung from Brașov, the hospital opened its doors on June 3, 1853, under the name Ferenc József Territorial Hospital in Sfântu Gheorghe.
After the inauguration, immediately, the hospital begins its operations. In the first month, 31 people were already admitted.
Regarding the first doctors, researchers found no definitive data, but works on health-related topics from that period state that “there was no shortage of doctors.” At that time in Transylvania, there were 6 municipal and public hospitals operating: in Cluj Napoca, Târgu-Mureș, Turda, Făgăraș, Miercurea Ciuc, and Sfântu Gheorghe. These institutions admitted patients “who could justify their poverty.”.
The first physician was Dr. Wissiák Antal, who in 1871 was elected town physician. The second physician was Dr. Bertalan Dániel. Wissiák Antal was succeeded by Dr. Antal Mihály, and later by Dr. Kain Károly, whose signature can be found on the first patient observation sheet from 1880. However, from that date onwards, there were also other types of information, such as reports on patient movement.
The number of operations in 1882 is already 16, of which 5 were cases of skin cancer operated by cauterization, 2 cases of inguinal hernia, etc. From the report on patient movement for the year 1882 (compared to 1862), a year in which 408 patients were hospitalized, it can be concluded that the number of beds stagnated over the 20-year period.
In 1884, the competition announced for the position of hospital consultant doctor was won by Dr. Daday Vilmos, an assistant professor from Cluj Napoca. He worked for 32 years as a doctor in Sfântu Gheorghe, and his work left its mark on the functioning of the entire institution.
What did the hospital look like during Dr. Daday Vilmos's time?
After a description from 1891, the “Poor's Ward” section was located in the hospital's basement. The ground floor housed the women's wards, the rooms of the assistant physician and the steward, while the first floor contained the men's wards and the chief physician's residence. At that time, the hospital had 10 wards with 70 beds. At the initiative of Doctor Daday, running water was introduced in 1898, the courtyard was transformed into a park, and a telephone line was installed in 1905.
The hospital thus had 2 doctors, Daday and Wissiak, then Daday and Antal. József Benkő was the administrator. The work of the 2 doctors was assisted by female orderlies for male patients and by 2 nurses for female patients. There seems to have been little auxiliary staff. In 1885, 372 patients were treated with 8,957 days of hospitalization.
Following the death of administrator Benkő József, no one else is hired, and his salary is partially received by the chief physician, to further incentivize him in fulfilling the administrator's duties.
It is worth remembering that even the first Hospital Regulation was drawn up by Dr. Daday Vilmos in 1900.
It can be concluded that Dr. Daday Vilmos was, in his time, a physician with exceptional qualities, working under difficult and nascent conditions. Nevertheless, from a report dated 1906, one can read that “all patients operated on recovered and left the hospital in an improved state.”.
On February 10, 1906, a new resident doctor at the hospital in Sfântu Gheorghe, Dr. Fogolyán Kristóf, began his work. His life and career were closely tied to the life of the town and the hospital.
In 1912, Dr. Fogolyán Kristóf traveled to Budapest and, at his insistence, the government approved the project for building a new hospital and allocated 400,000 crowns for construction. Despite the outbreak of World War I, construction was nevertheless begun. After the end of World War I, the first step was to put into service the infectious diseases ward with 20 beds and a new operating block.
At the request of Dr. Fogolyán, the renowned architect, writer, and historian Kós Károly also designed a new “Mother and Child” pavilion. From 1926 onwards, the expansion of the hospital complex stagnated.
In 1937, Bidu Valer took over the management of the hospital. At his intervention, the Minister of Health decided to complete the hospital's construction. After 1939, Dr. Fogolyán Kristóf returned to the hospital's management, establishing the surgery department, the internal medicine department, the infectious diseases department, a 10-bed maternity ward, and a laboratory. Medical assistance within the maternity ward was also provided by Dr. Fogolyán Kristóf, who served concurrently as both a surgeon and a gynecologist.
For equipping the laboratory, he also took care of procuring a diagnostic X-ray machine, a KROGH apparatus, and an electrocardiograph. Current and modern analyses such as blood glucose, cholesterol, and residual nitrogen evaluation could be performed in the medical laboratory. After 1939, Dr. Koczka Árpád, a good colleague and collaborator of Dr. Fogolyán Kristóf, was appointed head of the Internal Medicine Department. Dr. Gyergyai Jenő, Dr. Nussbaum László, and Dr. Csavar Hajnal worked as resident physicians in the hospital.
In 1943, construction and installation work on the hospital was completed. It was now almost fully equipped and furnished, but World War II caused almost everything movable to disappear.
After the war, in 1945, the establishment of the mother and child protection network was entrusted to Dr. Fogolyán, with Dr. Csutak Sámuel as a good collaborator.
In the period after 1948, the pediatrics, surgery, internal medicine, and obstetrics-gynecology, and ENT departments were established separately, while dermatology, the infectious diseases department, and the TBC department with 50 beds moved to another building. The outpatient clinic was also put into operation.
A special event took place in the summer of 1975, when the new 430-bed hospital was put into operation. In 2006, the total number of beds reached 748, with a total staff of 892 people, of whom 128 were doctors.
In celebration of the hospital's 145th anniversary, we aimed to revive and carry forward, according to the demands of the era, an ideal that has always been characteristic of the city of Sfintu Gheorghe: the improvement of healthcare. To this end, on January 28, 1993, the “Szent György” Hospital Foundation was established in the municipality of Sfintu Gheorghe. It is a non-political association with humanitarian concerns. Any honest citizen, from within the country or abroad, who works in the healthcare field or not, as well as any institution, commercial company, association, or religious community that adopts the foundation's program and assures us of its moral, spiritual, and material support, can become a member of this association.
The foundation aims to improve the quality of healthcare, develop the material base and environmental conditions offered to patients, highlight issues of medical sociology, systematically spread health education, better utilize natural resources with therapeutic potential, combat alcoholism, maintain collaborative relationships with the “Engedjétek hozzám a kisgyermekeket” (“Let the children come to me”) Foundation in Békéscsaba (Hungary), and pursue other similar objectives.
In a first phase, the emergency service and the medical analysis laboratory were endowed with the donated funds.
Starting in March 2005, the Hospital changed its name from Sfântu Gheorghe County Hospital to „Dr. Fogolyán Kristóf” Sfântu Gheorghe County Hospital, based on the Minister of Health's Order no. 136 of 25.02.2005.
Starting on 01.10.2007, the unit becomes an EMERGENCY hospital, based on O.M.S. no. 1276/16.07.2007