Ocean Road Hospital was founded in 1897 by the colonial government of
German East Africa. In the beginning, the hospital catered exclusively for the German community. The hospital was established to provide medical care for the growing number of Europeans in German East Africa, as the existing medical facilities provided by
mission stations were unsatisfactory. After initial plans to build the hospital in
Zanzibar or
Bagamoyo, Dar es Salaam was chosen as the location, because of its growing importance for the colonial administration. In German colonial times, the relatively small number of physicians were
medical officers and
nurses were sent by
Catholic or Protestant missions. From the time it was founded in 1897 and until 1901, the clinic was managed by Alexander Becker, who had been the colony's chief physician since 1891, followed by Werner Steuber (1901–1905) and subsequently Hugo Meixner. The hospital was intended to treat only Germans and other Europeans. The Sewa Hadji Hospital, opened in early 1897, with German medical staff and financed by donations from the Indian
philanthropist Sewa Hadji, was however intended for the local population, and the number of patients in that hospital was far higher. After the
First World War, the
British colonial government continued the former restriction of serving the
European communities only at the hospital. == Historical architecture ==