In 1954 Dr Wynen opened a clinic with 23 beds in Braine-l'Alleud.

It quickly proved to be too small. In 1958 he began work on a 50-bed clinic on the site of the present Braine-l'Alleud - Waterloo Hospital.

This opened its doors in 1960. However, within just a few years (during which time the population of Walloon Brabant continued to grow) the clinic once again found that it was too small.

The idea of building a 225-bed hospital was born in 1969. It took concrete shape in 1974, and the new hospital opened in 1977. The non-profit association that owns and manages the hospital consists of the medical staff who work there, a feature not very often seen in the world of hospitals in Belgium.

Medical work on this site has never stopped expanding. In the early 1980s the hospital acquired an SMUR (Mobile Emergency and Resuscitation Service). At the time this was supported by the hospital itself and worked closely with the Braine l'Alleud Fire Department providing the 100 emergency service.

In response to developments in the world of hospitals and recognising the need to merge or group together (encouraged by the Government), we turned to our colleagues at Institut Médical Edith Cavell, which had already merged with the Parc Leopold Clinic and the New Basilique Clinic. The choice was a particularly natural one, since the non-profit association managing that institution was organised along the same lines as our own.

Since 2000, Braine-l'Alleud - Waterloo Hospital has been an integral part of the Centre Hospitalier Interrégional Edith Cavell (CHIREC) together with these other three clinics.

Within this hospital group, Braine-l'Alleud - Waterloo Hospital has continued to expand: 

• a new wing was built in 2001 for the Intensive Care Unit and administrative and logistical services, together with  renovation of the operating suite, 
• a new building followed in 2010, housing the new Medicine for Older People Department, the musculoskeletal rehabilitation department and new medical and surgical day hospitals. These made it possible to increase capacity, especially thanks to the creation of three new dedicated operating theatres. 

Today...

The hospital's capacity has now reached 260 beds.

It has an Orthopaedics Department whose reputation has spread far beyond the local area.

The same applies to the Maternity Unit, which first pioneered the concept of "childbirth without violence". This concept is now completely integrated in practice and the Unit is supported by a Paediatrics Department offering a wide range of expertise. A Medically Assisted Reproduction service is the final link in our "Women and Children" chain.

Our hospital is also a Regional Hospital Centre, offering an emergency service to the local population; this service caters for more than 30,000 patients and carries out more than 1,200 emergency (SMUR) missions each year, as well as providing a varied range of medical services in both medical and surgical disciplines and excellent technological facilities, specifically including magnetic resonance imaging.

In the very near future the extension of our site will continue with the construction of a new and more spacious building to replace the clinic built in 1960 on rue Wayez. This will make it possible to increase the capacity of our hospital once again, and the new facility will also house the new Paediatrics Department. 

In parallel with this development, the Emergency Department, which has outgrown its current premises, will be extended, together with the operating suite and its essential logistical services (sterilisation).