Until the 1960s,
St. Peter's Hospital in
Brussels' city centre and Brugmann Hospital in
Laeken were the university clinics of the
Free University of Brussels' Faculty of Medicine, but with the increasing need for hospital capacity and the increasing number of students, these two clinics were no longer sufficient. In addition, the
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven) and its French-speaking spin-off, the
Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), had made plans in the late 1960s to build a new university clinic in the east of Brussels; today's
Saint-Luc University Hospital. The Free University pushed ahead with their hospital plans, and in 1968, the Federal Ministry of Health approved the construction of a university hospital with 1,500 beds. However, in 1969, the French and Dutch entities of the Free University separated into two distinct sister universities, thus two university hospitals were created in Brussels with 900 beds by the French-speaking
Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and 600 beds by the Dutch-speaking
Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), the latter emerging as UZ Brussel in
Jette (north-west Brussels). The construction work for Erasmus Hospital began in October 1971 on an open field at the limit of
Anderlecht (south-west Brussels) with the
Pajottenland (
Flemish Brabant). The hospital was inaugurated in 1977 and gradually moved into the building the following years. The hospital's first medical director was Alain De Wever, who was one of the main initiators of the project while still a student in the 1960s. Buildings for laboratories followed in 1978 and a new site for the School of Public Health was also constructed. At the beginning of 1979, only 200 beds were available, with the number increasing to 300 beds at the end of that year. In 1991, the Faculty of Medicine moved entirely to the campus. In 1994, the
Museum of Medicine was established. ==Erasmus campus==