Hospital
Equipment and Infrastructures
The Daman District Hospital is located on a square and was inaugurated during the last years of Portuguese presence in India, originating as an infirmary-maternity built in 1952. This first aid structure was raised on the site of the barracks of the Daman Company of Caçadores [hunters – a light military unit] which in turn was installed in the same block where the Damão Misericórdia charity institution functioned until the mid-19th cen- tury. The Hospital remains operational today.
The building has three main wings arranged around a garden on the north, east and south sides. A small chapel is situated on the west side. Although some sources date to 1900 the foundation of this structure, one year after an epidemic of bubonic plague in Daman, photos from up to a decade and a half beforehand suggest that the chapel had earlier origins, probably dating to the time of the building complex of the Misericórdia.
The Hospital’s entrance is in the west wing; there is a porticoed gallery throughout the inside of the three wings, serving as the building’s main distributor. Two new blocks were built after 1961, north and east of the original building.
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