A hospital for your ambition

[venta]

What is it with Oxford's hospitals ?

For years, two of the main hospitals in the city were called respectively the John Radcliffe and the Radcliffe Infirmary. People frequently referred to either as "the Radcliffe".

Why yes, since you ask, that did cause quite a lot of confusion.

This morning I headed up to The Nuffield, Headington, for a physio appointment. I was running late (having broken the cardinal rule of Oxford driving, notably do not go up Divinity Road when in a hurry). I then wasted twenty minutes in various different departments until we finally deduced that I should have been at Nuffield Hospital Oxford (The Manor). Which is also in Headington.

Next time anyone builds a hospital in Oxford, can we lobby them to give it a name which is, like, distinct from all the other medical establishments ?

Comments

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

The Manor Hospital is now a Nuffield? That's news to me. (I believe it, but I hadn't a clue it had happened.)

However. The "Oxford Radcliffe" has been known as JR or JR2 to locals since - well, since it opened properly, I guess, so July 1972*. The RI is/was the RI and/or the Infirmary. I've never come across anyone mixing the two up, particularly since the two have never really had much overlap. I can see how they could get mixed up if you don't know either hospital, but honestly you're the first person to mention confusing the two that I can ever recall. Curious.


* How to tell how old Oxford-born people are without explicitly asking. If they admit they were born in the RI, they are older than 36.5. If they were born in the JR they are younger than 36.25. If they are exactly my age, they were born in a makeshift ward in the Churchill, thanks to a bit of poor service-transfer planning. :D

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

I vote for the Radfield. Or the Nufcliffe.

Yup. The Nufcliffe.

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

Tangentially, whenever the Oxford Times uses "NOC" in a headline, I think of No Overall Control (as in local government) rather than Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre.

[uitlander]

Can I suggest you adopt the Reading protcol, and from now on refer to your major IT businesses and your central shopping centre as Oracle. You'll find it makes everything so much more intuitive.

I always thought 'The Radcliffe' meant the infirmary, as people also spoke of 'The JR'. But until today I didn't know there were two Nuffields in the hospital context.